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Revisiting The Ring Two: What Went Wrong?

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This post contains some SPOILERS for The Ring and The Ring Two. Proceed at your discretion.

The Ring is a movie audiences either found utterly stupid or utterly terrifying. Consider me in the latter category. The story of a cursed video tape which leads to the viewer’s death after seven days had me leaving the theater in 2002 truly disturbed and never wanting to turn on my TV again. The images of the spirit responsible for the tape, Samara, with a cloak of long black hair shrouding her monstrous face, stuck with me for weeks. So in 2005 when the previews for The Ring Two hit the airwaves, I could feel a sense of both dread and anticipation boiling within. Even though the first one genuinely frightened me, I had to see where the story would go. When I left the theater after watching The Ring Two, I felt none of the trepidation that hung over my shoulders after the first film. In fact, I basically left the theater with a shrug. Last week I watched it again for the first time in years out of curiosity, and once again I found myself bored, sighing and shrugging the movie away. What went wrong?

The movie begins well enough. It continues the saga of the cursed video tape by opening with a teenager trying to trick a girl from his class into watching his copy so he can be spared from Samara’s wrath, which is in line with the revelation toward the end of the first film that in order to save yourself, you must make a copy of the tape and show it to someone else. However, it turns out the girl had closed her eyes out of fear and did not see it, and the boy’s time is up. He falls to his knees, accepting his fate as Samara crawls from the well, out of the TV, and claims another victim. Scary enough, but after this, it’s all downhill.

Brave reporter Rachel Keller and her son Aiden have moved to this small town after the events of the first film. Working at the town’s newspaper, she hears about the teenager who died and is intrigued by the fact that “they keep talking about his face” (in the first film, victims of Samara were found with grotesque facial expressions). She enters the scene, and after seeing the young man’s horribly warped face, Samara herself appears and tells Rachel, “I found you,” and promptly vanishes. Thus begins the number one problem with The Ring Two: Samara has been turned from a frightening monster into a sad little ghost girl who just wants a mommy.

ring two aiden samara

 

As the film continues, Samara pursues Rachel and her son so she can worm her way into the family, presumably because she appreciates what Rachel tried to do for her in the first film. Samara eventually succeeds with her plan by actually possessing Aiden, pushing Rachel to dig deeper into Samara’s past so she can save her son. Who was her birth mother? Why was Samara so special? A lot of time is spent on this, and Rachel mostly ends up finding a bunch of cryptic one-liners, such as “you let the dead get in” rather than any real answers. For the amount of time spent on Rachel’s investigation, there is very little payoff.

Eventually, Rachel finds a way to rid her son’s body of Samara’s spirit, although given that Aiden has a more spritely and entertaining personality while she possesses him, I’d almost be tempted to keep her around if I were in Rachel’s shoes. She pretends to drown Aiden, causing Samara’s spirit to leave his body and give Rachel a look of sadness before vanishing away with a splash, because she’s water now, I guess? Anyway, it’s over, right? Not quite. Samara is back, and Rachel allows herself to be pulled into their TV and down into the well. They race up the stone walls, Rachel escapes, a hilariously distorted voice cries “Mommy,” and Rachel shuts the well with a “smile you son of a bitch” style one-liner that inspires eye rolls instead of fist pumps.

I kept finding myself thinking, what’s the big deal? Samara just wants a mommy. The first film briefly led us to believe that Samara was a misunderstood little girl, but then twisted that on us in magnificently frightening fashion when she crawled out of the TV to terrorize and kill Rachel’s friend. That monster left an impression, which is what any good horror movie monster should do. Turning that into something the audience feels sorry for completely wipes away our fear.

Another problem with The Ring Two is that it failed to surprise us. All of the major set pieces are rehashes of the first film—the twisted faces, the creepy sound effects, Samara crawling out of the TV. My audience in 2002 gasped at the shock of seeing the disfigured face of the unfortunate girl from the film’s opening scene. Later, an audience member literally screamed when Samara crawled out of the TV, and no one made fun of her–we were all just as terrified. The Ring built a quiet but intense sense of dread throughout the film, and then walloped us in the end with a shocking finale. The Ring Two had no such build-up, no such surprises, and that is why it stands as one of the most disappointing sequels in horror history.

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Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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