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— by Corey Moss
BEVERLY HILLS, California - Just as "The Ring" was a smash hit in the U.S., the Japanese movie on which it was based, "Ringu," was enormously popular, spawning a prequel and two sequels.
So which one does "The Ring Two," opening Friday, remake?
Try none of the above.
Citing the Japanese prequel and sequels as being "extremely abstract and confusing," the producers decided to create an entirely new movie. The problem was "The Ring" director Gore Verbinski wasn't interested, nor was Richard Kelly ("Donnie Darko"), and commercials director Noam Murro lasted only a couple of months before leaving over "creative differences."
So the producers turned to a director they were certain could handle the ambitious task: Hideo Nakata, the Japanese horror master behind both "Ringu" and "Ringu 2."
"Hideo clearly knew what he was doing," said "The Ring" star Naomi Watts, who supported the move. "He was fantastic from day one. He had a very pure vision of what this needed to be and ... he knew I had an understanding of the character as well, so it was good we both came with some history."
Ehren Kruger, who wrote "The Ring" (as well as "Arlington Road," "Scream 3" and "Reindeer Games"), was enlisted to pen the script, which follows entirely different characters than "Ringu 2." The main element of "The Ring" - the videotape - also plays a much smaller part in the U.S. sequel.
" 'The Ring Two' is all about Naomi's character, who has to face Samara's evil spirit again," Nakata said, referring to the ghost in the well from "The Ring." "But in a much worse manner compared to the first one, because the spirit is inside her boy, the spirit is right in front of her and she has to deal with the spirit. She can't just run away. 'The Ring Two' and 'Ringu 2' are completely different stories."
"The Ring Two" takes place six months after "The Ring," with Watts' character, Rachel Keller, and her son having moved to the quiet mountain town of Astoria, Washington, for a fresh start. One of her first assignments as a reporter, however, is to cover the mysterious death of a teenager where an unmarked tape turns up at the crime scene. (That opening scene and the end of "The Ring" are bridged in a 20-minute mini-movie called "The Rings," which was just released on "The Ring" special-edition DVD.)
As Rachel investigates the tape, or more so the return of Samara, the ghost reemerges into her life in frightening fashion, eventually taking over the body of her son. With that twist, Watts was forced to shoot several difficult scenes with child actor David Dorfman.
"It's scary," Watts said. "I was so nervous about doing anything that would make a child feel uncomfortable ... so we tried to work out all these systems, you know, 'Just give me the signal that we're not acting anymore.' "
Nakata, directing his first American film, also made it easier by thoroughly talking out the scenes before they were shot. "He also talked about how he was an only child and his mom raised him, so he had an understanding of that emotional relationship," Watts said.
In the movie, Rachel is eventually accused of child abuse, which is all the more believable when her doctor finds records of her suffering from post-partum depression. It's one of several examples of the movie advancing forward by taking from the characters' pasts. Samara's history is also explored in both flashback and through new characters, including her mother, played by Sissy Spacek.
"The parallels are being drawn between me as a mother and Samara's mother and what I have done to my child and what was done to her by her mother," Watts explained. "So there's things for the audience there to play with and look into, and that's clearly why Samara's drawn to me."
And then there are the history elements revealed that aren't ever realized, like when one of Samara's former caretakers tells Rachel that Samara has no father.
"I think that's a very interesting moment in this movie," Nakata said. "I would like the audience to be careful to listen to that line and to think about what the backstory is. It would be a very interesting 'Ring Three.' "
So is Nakata interested in continuing the U.S. side of "The Ring" franchise?
"I have a story in my mind," he said. "I had a discussion with ["Ringu" and "Ringu 2" screenwriter] Hiroshi Takahashi about the ghost's backstory. And I have my own story, but maybe it's better not to tell that at this moment."
As for Watts' chance of returning for a third, "We'll see," she said. "It just depends." Regardless, she's happy to have played Rachel twice.
"She had a great emotional journey in the first one and it was not just your classic genre picture with a damsel-in-distress kind of role," Watts said. "It was more than that and that's what drew me to the first. And I always knew when I did the first that there was going to be a number two."
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Photo: MTV News
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