Ring 2 is an effective, atmospheric, stylish, very well-made chiller that never quite matches the extremely high standards of its predecessor.

The basic premise of Ring - a killer video tape is no urban legend and will kill anyone who sees it within the week unless they can somehow pass the curse onto someone else - was a brilliantly simple one that allowed for an absorbing race-against-time narrative.

Ring 2, in which Mai, the girlfriend of mathematician Ryuji from the original film, attempts to discover what happened to render Ryuji's son, Yoichi, a mute orphan, suffers by comparison from having nowhere left to go, resulting in a meandering narrative that tries to explain the inexplicable and trips up on its own cleverness more often than not.

However, this is not to say that Ring 2 is a bad film, only that, like most horror sequels, it is fundamentally redundant. Fans of the original will probably want to see it anyway; others are advised to watch Ring first and then decide.

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