Rachel and her son Aden have moved far away from Seattle to a smaller town, thinking they've finally escaped Samara and her cursed tape. One night, a boy brings a tape to his friend's house. This is a copy of the cursed tape, unknown to his friend. She puts the tape in and covers her eyes. When she opens them, she witnesses her boyfriend being murdered by the ghostly from on the TV screen. Now, she wants to take over Aden's body so she can live again. Rachel must stop her from doing this. But, when she finds out what she must do to end it, she doesn't think she can go through with it. Will Rachel do what she must to save herself & her son?

FINALLY! After over a year, I get to see this very anticipated sequel to a truly great horror flick. The movie opened slowly, moving over a body of water and then to the opening scene. That was a bit boring, and I wish they'd cut it out. No need to see a pointless ocean view before the awesome opening scene. Naomi Watts delivers quite well, and a bit better than in the first one. She showed more emotion & passion in her role than she did in it's predecessor. This suprised me, because she's been weak at acting in most of her movies. The little boy, of course, was the best out of ALL of the actors & actresses, along with the one that played Samara's lunatic mother. It was great to actually see more than one convincing performance in a horror film so far this year. They made you feel for them. The special effects are at about the same level as part one, and are very effective at making you think it's real. I loved the scene where the design of a tree burns into the walls of Aden's room. That was great! The direction of this film was pretty good, and the director gave this movie a much different feel from the original. He actually made it feel darker than the first one. The coloring and lighting used upped that feel. The thing I liked the most about the direction of this one is that it didn't rely on as much jump scares as The Grudge did and it built up to the ending, which wasn't that great but definately better than the most recent horror films to come out this year. The plot is different from part one, but definately not as developed and not as good and was kind of disappointing. Good direction, average plot. It may have felt darker, but it wasn't scarier because there wasn't as much in this film that was as unexpected as most of the original, even though it was a very well written screenplay. So, all in all, this is an entertaining sequel but it did not live up to part one. I'd definately reccomend seeing it...as a late-night rental.

Final rating: 6 out of 10.