It's far better! Scrap the soporific main feature and go for this beauty of a short film. Well, actually the sequel does make this look superb, but what we have here is an innovative 14-minute short that has an engrossingly taut layout and actually foreshadows the opening of "The Ring Two".
So, after the opening death scene in "The Ring Two". This one goes back a week earlier and follows the teenage boy Jake who joins a small circle of teens, who are interested in the cursed videotape. Where they convince Jake to watch the video to save one of them. Then we watch Jake go through the mind-boggling experience, where he records and films the details. But when it starts to get the better of him he soon realises that this is no easy walk in the park and he's finding it hard to get somebody to watch his tape.
The way the story opens up is an neat idea involving this urban legend of the cursed unmarked videotape becoming somewhat of an underground thrill ride for curious and extreme on lookers who just want to test out this dangerously bizarre mind trip. There are cult groups that have experienced this sensation, where they have recorded accounts that pop up on the Internet. It even touches on the idea if these images are something more, like an opening into another dimension than just illusion. Somehow this one packs a lot of realistic excitement, hair raising frights and very surreal visions within the limited time and it's still rather fulfilling in its subject matter. The atmosphere is highly cold and depressingly ominous with such intense performances. There's just much more substance and terrifying images here compared to its bigger brother. Even the filming techniques are extremely sharper with CGI that's more crisper, atmospheric camera-work and rapid-fire editing that fitted into the twitchy / on edge mood it was going for. The brisk pace never lets up or gives you a chance to get comfortable, because you get caught up in the frantic mess the main character falls into.
A hauntingly gripping and very well executed short.
So, after the opening death scene in "The Ring Two". This one goes back a week earlier and follows the teenage boy Jake who joins a small circle of teens, who are interested in the cursed videotape. Where they convince Jake to watch the video to save one of them. Then we watch Jake go through the mind-boggling experience, where he records and films the details. But when it starts to get the better of him he soon realises that this is no easy walk in the park and he's finding it hard to get somebody to watch his tape.
The way the story opens up is an neat idea involving this urban legend of the cursed unmarked videotape becoming somewhat of an underground thrill ride for curious and extreme on lookers who just want to test out this dangerously bizarre mind trip. There are cult groups that have experienced this sensation, where they have recorded accounts that pop up on the Internet. It even touches on the idea if these images are something more, like an opening into another dimension than just illusion. Somehow this one packs a lot of realistic excitement, hair raising frights and very surreal visions within the limited time and it's still rather fulfilling in its subject matter. The atmosphere is highly cold and depressingly ominous with such intense performances. There's just much more substance and terrifying images here compared to its bigger brother. Even the filming techniques are extremely sharper with CGI that's more crisper, atmospheric camera-work and rapid-fire editing that fitted into the twitchy / on edge mood it was going for. The brisk pace never lets up or gives you a chance to get comfortable, because you get caught up in the frantic mess the main character falls into.
A hauntingly gripping and very well executed short.