Bug-eyed kids, soggy corpses, and majestic reindeer From the moment The Ring Two begins, the skeptical moviegoer already knows he was right to suspect the second movie might be the same as the first. Indeed, as before, the movie opens on a young woman of mediocre attractiveness being invited to watch the scariest tape ever. From there follows some cynicism, some weird events, and (as expected) a poor teen eventually ends up disfigured into Munch’s “The Scream.” Though the script writers probably thought they were tapping into some playful nostalgia from the first film, what they were really doing is foreshadowing the movie’s ultimate downslide into banality and anticlimax.

The one major difference between The Ring Two and its predecessor is the former’s lack of intrigue. There are no mysteries being solved her—not really. Mostly the movie draws its tension from dramatic irony, the idea that the viewer knows something the characters don’t. Thus, you might find yourself biting your nails and getting frustrated as haunting events unfold, but you’ll never find yourself actually wondering whether or not creepy young Aidan (David Dorfman) is possessed. Nor even does Aidan’s mother Rachel (Naomi Watts), not once she sees the unexplainable (and ultimately unexplained) phenomena he causes. Whenever a character does have a momentous epiphany, it usually comes just before the new information is necessary (as in: “Oh dear, the corpse is coming after me—I better close this symbolic well to seal her in forever!”), so the impact is minimal.

Sans the excitement of answering arcane questions, this ill-fated sequel is left leaning on fear value to support itself. Unfortunately, it adheres to the first’s mechanisms of fear: water, equines, television static, a soggy corpse, and bulgy-eyed David Dorfman. Only the final two are even the least bit disturbing—and, believe it or not, Dorfman is far eerier than the corpse, looking all pallid and bug-eyed and scrawny. As for the first three: the water is computer-generated and really not that threatening, television static is only frightening if you have satellite TV because then it means you must go to the roof to adjust the dish, and the equines this time around are bucks instead of horses—so mostly they just look majestic. Not to mention that these deer are even more obviously computer generated than the water.

So, if The Ring Two is just like its predecessor minus intrigue and thrill, what’s left? Well, you get a boring, not-scary The Ring. The acting hasn’t really changed enough to affect anything: Watts still plays an ambiguously concerned mother, Dorfman still plays an ugly child, and the Samara-character still lacks a face and any meaningful dialogue. Sissy Spacek, who dominates her five minute scene, does a fine job of acting quirky and quasi-sacred, but I think that’s more because I expected her to seem so than because she actually conveyed any sort of memorable character.