Rachel is uncomfortable among nosy, smalltown neighbors like chatty Carol Breyer. After all, she's a single mom and the neighbors, even though some of them are single parents themselves, wonder what her story is. Rachel and Aidan are just looking to start over after the events they endured in the original film but, this being a sequel, they're obviously hoping for too much.

Rachel's professional curiosity is intrigued when it comes over the police scanner that Asheville has suffered its first homicide in decades. The victim is a teenage male who was found dead at home, his face ravaged. His date, Emily, is still shaken and disturbed by his gruesome demise.

As you can imagine, the cause of his death was viewing that underground videotape. Only Rachel secretly believes this story, which has been dismissed by everyone else as an urban legend. Rachel initially orders a young reporter not to mention the tape in her story; after all, it's only a rumor and they must report facts.

But Rachel knows the truth about what the tape is and pursues this story after it becomes clear strange things are happening in Asheville ... and her son Aidan has been affected by them.

I'm going to tread very carefully now for the sake of SPOILERS (and don't bother asking me for further details because I ain't talking). After a traumatic experience, Aidan is hospitalized – unconscious, perilously cold, and bruised. Rachel insists that Aidan did not experience hypothermia but can't explain what's really ailing him without sounding crazy.

Hospital shrink Dr. Emma Temple implies that Rachel may have abused Aidan, reminding her that she suffered from post-partum depression. There's nothing that matters more to Rachel than her son and there's nothing that she wouldn't do for him. Unfortunately, she looks guilty as sin.


In the meantime Rachel pursues the tape story, returning to the Seattle area to dig deeper into the past of Samara Morgan. She makes a series of discoveries that lead her to the dark truth (how's that for a vague Hollywood summary?) even as her son Aidan ... well, you'll just have to wait for the movie.


Confession time: I did not love the 2002 film and still have not seen Ringu (I know). But I liked Kruger's draft for The Ring 2, perhaps even more so than the first film. I found The Ring to be interesting rather than involving, intriguing rather than scary (but I admit to being in the minority on this).

According to Yahoo! Movies, there was substantial re-editing done to the 2002 film, including the excision of an entire subplot featuring Oscar-winner Chris Cooper as a serial killer of children. Test screenings reportedly forced the filmmakers to further explain the mystery of the cursed videotape, which I felt is what ruined the picture.

The lore of the tape just confounded me; less would have been more but apparently suburbia needed to be hit over the head with answers to riddles that still don't make sense. Determining what scares people in a movie is like trying to gauge what they find sexy; some folks like overt imagery, screaming and splatter, while others liked to be teased with hints and to use their imagination to, uh, probe deeper.

Another thing that bugged me about the first film was that, while I liked the characters (particularly Watts and Dorfman), I felt they served the story not the other way around. Not so this time. This draft of The Ring 2 is definitely about Rachel and Aidan and that's why I enjoyed it.

I cared about these characters, which is what made this draft a page-turner (even more so than its mysterious elements). The relationship between Rachel and Aidan had – no pun intended –the ring of truth to it without being schmaltzy. They're my favorite mother/son pairing in a thriller since Toni Collette and Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense.

The dread and terror in this story are amplified precisely because you do care about these protagonists. You don't want to see anything bad befall them but, since it's a horror film, you grimly accept that it's bound to happen.

Rachel's investigation into Samara's origin was gripping, especially since it jibes with how they've set up Rachel. (Confused? Good, because to explain further would only needlessly spoil things.) You'd definitely need to see The Ring, however, in order to comprehend the events depicted here.

Overall, I enjoyed Ehren Kruger's draft of The Ring 2. It improved upon the characterizations established in the 2002 film while also doing a better job of expounding on the legend of Samara Morgan. – STAX