Stuart:

While this isn’t a bad sequel per se, it’s certainly a gratuitous addition to the Ring (Ringu) cycle.

Ring 0 is noticeably different from the first two, mostly due to the absence of Hideo Nakata. This is a very dull film. The sense of impending terror that was ever-present in Ring, and slightly less so in Ring 2, is barely a blip on the radar in Ring 0.

It took my friend Kris and I a long while to work out what was actually going on in this film. In fact when we got to the end and read the blurb on the back cover we were presented with information that certainly hadn’t been clear from viewing the film. We were also subjected to what I like to call ‘ghost subtitles’. These were times when we were presented with dialogue even though no one was speaking and there was no written information within the frame.

The acting is the same wooden Japanese style that I have become accustomed to over the years. Imagine… I used to think the deadpan deliveries in Anime were simply in aid of cutting animation costs!

The plot developments and ‘twists’ in this film don’t really enlighten us in any useful way. In fact it simply destroys the purity of the original terrifying premise.

Ring 0 is like a cheap imitation of the original. Whilst I could abide by the first sequel, this was simply unnecessary. But I’m sure it made a lot of money all the same…