After having a good time with Ringu (1998), I decided to take a chance on this sequel that was strangely released at the same time, as a sort of sister movie. It shares a few actors and sets, but it was made by a different director and has an entirely different feel. It starts off with a decent opening act, setting up an interesting new character, and a new investigation of the mystery of the tape. Some of the shots are quite pretty to look at, too. But the plot never really becomes satisfying - the writing gets worse and worse until it reaches a laughable and bizarre conclusion.

The villain of the first movie was the apparition of a powerful psychic girl who died years ago. She was a tragic figure - but she was absolutely horrifying. There was no reasoning with her, and no grand motivation to her curse, it was an expression of her hatred. Sadako is back this time alongside the tape, but this time she's.... sexy? Her disturbing appearance from Ringu is replaced with a pleasant look and a saucy attitude. It turns out that the videotape didn't really have much to do with anything; it was just a minor part of her grand plan. The investigation this time is medicalized. The curse isn't just something supernatural, it's a virus. And you almost want that to work for a second, but it's never really explained or understood, and it never becomes satisfying. The curse becomes something dry and boring, until it becomes something ridiculously outlandish and impossible!

The original Ringu relies heavily on the supernatural. The curse is something fully spiritual, but it's actually explained in detail and the viewer comes to understand it satisfactorily. The virus in this movie is something super bizarre that you can never quite understand. It acts like a curse, then it's a disease, then it's a curse again, then it's freaking super powers. I can almost guarantee that you won't believe the way it acts towards the end of this film. It's truly a slap in the face.

Another thing is that there is not a single scary moment in this movie. There's no horror here at all. It just strings you along with a weirdly convoluted and bad plot. It feels like the back half of the movie was rushed out in a hurry - there's almost no weight to anything when the reveals start hitting. Thankfully, this sequel doesn't manage to retroactively ruin Ringu, because it's almost impossible to square what happens here with the events of the original. The characters that are borrowed just aren't themselves, and the spirit of the curse is entirely gone.

Strangely enough, this movie seems to be fairly faithful to the original books, which is wild to me. But those stories seem to get even more far-fetched as they go along. I suppose Ringu just made something great out of a fairly mediocre work.