A Candle Cove joke... I see you are a man of culture, Mr Sinclair

Another reason why it’s hard to find Samara scary…she’s Lilo from Lilo and Stitch.

I can't watch this without immediately thinking of Scary Movie 3...

I like to believe the oddness around Aiden's interactions with Samara in the first film, his watching the tape because he 'couldn't sleep', and his panic at learning she was out of the well combined with the nose bleed and the line 'She never sleeps' are all tied together. Samara's grudge was focused, limited, and technically weak. She could harm those who saw the tape, influence the world immediately around those who had watched it and were now subject to its curse, or entice those who were vulnerable to her powers to be drawn into its curse, but otherwise she couldn't do much. As Ring 2 and Rings suggest, however, the moment she was 'freed' was the moment things began to go downhill but fast. Whatever limits she had began to unravel, and what she is capable of grows steadily if unevenly, culminating with what can only be described as a memetic apocalypse at the end of Rings. Freeing Sadako did little to nothing to stop her vengeance... but freeing Samara made it much stronger.

Oh man the Yor joke takes me back. Still miss the old spoony days.

'Rings' sounds like random original horror script quickly adapted to belong to the franchise.

Regarding the "Samara wants a mommy" thing, I just figured the reason why she goes after Rachel was because she was actually kind to her, in that she got her out of the well, even if it didn't stop her rage

When you mentioned the actors’ accents slipping, it threw me off because I know Johnny Galecki and Vincent D’Nofrio are American, and when I saw a bit from an interview with Matilda Lutz, I thought she was American. Mind you, I could just be an idiot and not know what an Italian-American accent sounds like, and it’s been a while since I watched Rings, so I forgot some of the moments you mentioned. Also, on the note of Samara, in the sequels she’s played by contortionist Bonnie Morgan. She is very interesting, not only because of her contortion ability and her lively personality, but she actually has some horror pedigree. Either her father or uncle was the suit double for Cujo, and her aunt was Annie, the girl who gets her throat slit by Pamela Voorhees in The original Friday the 13th.

Wouldn't it just be funny if the ending of Rings was just the SCP slapping the professor

I love me more Late Night Double Feature. If I have one nitpick, it would be Clive's final line before the credits. How about the following... "When we return, it will be *insert movie theme here*. For now, I'm Clive Sinclair. And we'll meet again... when it's just after midnight somewhere."

The Ring Two is pretty much an example of what happens when the director and screenwriter have difficulty communicating. Most of the time it's through personal issues. But in Hideo Nakata and Ehren Kruger's case, it's more to do with the language barrier. Hideo Nakata had a translator during production, and no matter how good of a translator you have, it's just impossible to truly get all the nuances right. Nakata's specialty is usually in interesting spooky visuals, so he basically tried to go with spectacle in Ring Two, even if it doesn't always make the most sense in the story itself. That's why scenes like Samara chasing Rachel in the well is very much improved from Sadako chasing Mai in Ringu 2, where Samara crawls in a backwards photography style similar to how Sadako's walking is done during the TV scene. Compared to the equivalent scene in Ringu 2 where she simply crawls regularly and the creepiness has more to do with the reconstructed face she has. Obviously Ring Two is not actually a remake of Ringu 2 as they have very different plots, but I thought the equivalent scene makes for a good comparison. Either way, it's clear that Hideo Nakata is at his best when he has a good ruleset on how the curse works, which is why Ringu worked out so well, as he can take the existing rules of the novels and tweak them, and then just add his creative spooky imagery to those solid rules. But both Ringu 2 and Ring Two had no novel source, which kinda loosened him up to do whatever he wants. And as many artists have learned, sometimes that freedom may end up giving you no real direction instead. So you basically get spooky imagery "just because". Also, have you watched the *short* film "rings"? It was featured on the DVD of Ring Two which actually leads directly towards Ring Two's events. The first half of the feature film Rings likely was inspired by the short film.

I love this series. That Clive Sinclair is a snappy dresser.

"And thus it is there where monsters dwell." Dang, that's good.

Considering US Ring 1 was meant to take place in the Puget Sound, yeah we do have a LOT of overcast days, hence the darker tone. The green tint is not normal.

I wonder if the scene with Aidan watching TV while possessed by Samara could work better if the focus was less on "cartoons" and more on "scenes of loving families spending time together". Assuming that version of her truly did want a second chance at the happy childhood she never had, this version of the scene could come across as her trying to get a better idea of what to do with her second chance once she got it.

Of course, the cicadas are actually a sign that she’s working for Imago!

This was a real good analysis of the films overall and frankly I agree here, Aiden's adult in child's body stuff threw me off big time. As did the whole "Samara was always evil actually" stuff that clashes with the other apparent theme of Rachel being distant from her son and learning a lesson from it.

I get forget the whole story. It’s mentioned in a commentary that scary movie three used closing the well to stop the ghost. Didn’t realize ring two was planning to use same sort of ending

Isn’t this technically a Late Night Triple Feature? Is that a thing?

Nice to see the books getting acknowledged.

Ahhh, I also know the episode of Candle Cove they were watching, it was the one with the whole cast screaming.

Haven't finished the video yet. But right off the start - We need Reb Brown in a Ring movie. We NEED this.

There’s Sadako comedy manga, which is weird. Continuing the parallels, there’s also William and Jason Striker from X-Men 2. It was bugging me where I’d seen Noah’s actor before. He’s Darcy from Bride & Prejudice.

Those glasses are the pimp, L. Your creativity impresses me to this day.

So many Rings, so little time. . .good work on doing a triple feature, Clive! And for giving us "the face of pure terror: A grumpy Klingon." XD It's impossible to see her as THAT scary after that.

The Ring is my favorite horror film of all time, and I'm tickled pink to see Lewis do such a fair review of it. Aidan doesn't bug me, but I totally get the frustrations, and I'm super with him about Samara's eye shot vs Sadako's eye shot...although I literally burst out laughing when I first saw Ryuji's death scene, so I guess it all evens out there. While the American version is ultimately dependent upon the innovations created by earlier iterations such as Ringu, I am of the personal opinion that The Ring is the most refined version of this story. It pulls influences from across the multitude of the franchise into a cohesive stand-alone reimagining of the lore. They didn't just remake the movie Ringu, they did a deep dive. Its shortcomings compared to the social commentary on the family dynamics present in Ringu are so obvious that I don't even think that it tried to really compete in that department, instead choosing to focus on social media commentary. There are a multitude of lines regarding reporters and television thoughtlessly spreading psychological trauma and personal tragedy like infection vectors--hell, the movie even opens with a conspiracy theory about televisions frying people's brains. The scene where Rachel looks out and watches other people playing televisions in their apartments strikes me as being more about presenting television as an easy access point into so many people's personal lives than it is about parenting, although that neglectful-parenting angle might have been intended as well--just not stressed as much as the commentary on reporting and media-sharing. In my personal headcanon, the only sequel story I recognize is Rings--but not *THAT* one! No, the original American "Rings" was a half-hour short film that was released alongside a DVD re-release of The Ring to serve as a prequel to Ring Two. It follows the opening kill character in Ring Two, but fortunately it instead mostly continues with the social media commentary and lore ideas of the first film, concentrating on underground internet culture. The 2005 "Rings" is so much better than Ring Two and big-budget Rings at a fraction of the runtime, it's not even funny. I think we are meant to infer that Aidan is psychic from the outset of the story, ergo his communication with Samara and his ability to retrace his cousin's steps at the funeral. Aidan's social awkwardness and aloofness may stem somewhat from the familial dysfunction, but I think he's also meant to be a parallel to Samara in that they are both supernaturally-attuned children with special needs that aren't being properly addressed. As for Samara "never sleeping," I think it's implied that she's not entirely human, and that Samara's second, more-sinister recitation of "but I do, and I'm sorry" is a non-diegetic peek into her mind presented for the audience's benefit, as in "here's what she was REALLY thinking when she said that." This all is conjecture on my part, but I love that the film is subtle and ambiguous in all the right places to make it so up-to-personal-interpretation without ever hindering the flow or comprehensibility of the narrative. An absolute legend of a film to me.

New late night double feature, AND on Hallows Eve? A treat for us!

Holy cow, the thumbnail art... I LOVE it!

I never watched the ring but now I have context to that one scene and scary movie 3.

I just realized that Samara wanting Rachel as her mother is also the plot of Dark Water, also directed by Nakata

Hey Linkara just wanted to say thanks for all the awesome long form content this month cant imagine how crazy the workload must have been

I generally don't like horror, but I will watch you, Clive. You're entertaining as hell!

rather than climbing out of hte flat screen at the start of rings sadako should have climbed out of hte closed laptop would be creepier

1:50 I never noticed that "Yor" was part of that line up. There are some KZfaqrs who would kill for that pristine looking copy.

Considering that Clive Sinclair says he's desperately lonely, is it an idea for Viga to play various characters as the companions to Linkara's characters? For Clive she can be Banshella, for 90's Dude she can be 90's Chick, and so on.

And it was the *screamer episode* of Candle Cove he was watching, too! Why can't I find a DVD set of that show anywhere? Every time I ask a store employee about that show they just stare at me confused and tilt their head slowly. Guess it's probably being held up on a music copyright licensing issue or something.

happy halloween everyone🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🥧🎃🍭🍬🍫🧁🍪🍩

Sadako in the title card looks like Cousin Itt with hands lol

Because of the Japanese movie Ringu 0, where they make a big deal about who is Sadokas father and there's something evil in the sea, but they are never showed, my headcanon is that her father is Cthulhu

Ooh this should be fun

2:45 in a alternated universe he had a boy with similar power and used him to kill all the mutants with Charles Xavier's Cerebro

Now be a good time for a ring playlist

You know one of the tapes is America Over There (a WWII documentary)! If this was Ashock the Fourth Wall, Linkara would have probably made a reference to the Superman OVER THERE recurring gag & assume its a documentary of Superman's thesis on why America had to remain isolationist during WWII until the Pearl Harbor attacks brought the war from OVER THERE to America!

Hey, don't you disrespect Yor, double movie dude! He's gonna make ALL the wild beasts look tame... tonight!

No viewing of Ring material is complete without Dalad Jelly.

Another great episode from my favorite horror movie review show.

I thought the TV’s being shown in each building was to represent how widespread the curse can be. That no matter where you went, Samara was able to get you. The same with Aiden saying “she never sleeps”, further proving how fruitless it is to try escaping the curse .

Ya know I was wonder what to watch on Halloween but now I know, thank you for bringing up Candle Cove! I'm gonna watch Channel Zero!! Been a while since I've seen it.

This goes on in circles plus the fact that the kid, Aidan, looks more scary

I think the bad stuff in the franchise was a case of lost in translation. I think the “you let the dead get in” makes sense in a Japanese context because coming into contact with blood, corpses or such like will make one spiritually unclean and then bad things can happen.

Samara is the girl from spirited away

19:53 “speaking of..!” Burger King Ad: YOU KNOW WHATS UP That was perfectly timed

I remember seeing the second movie at the theater. It ended around 12, so when the movie let out the theater was pretty empty. Before leaving I went to the bathroom and there was a fly flying around, similar to when the fly came out of the faucet. It wasn't enough to freak me out, but now that scene is pretty much the only thing remember about the movie

"desperately lonely and watching horror movies" well that stings

With daylights savings, its just after midnight somewhere twice!

Oh no. You ain't fooling me. I've seen 'The Beast Within', I know cicadas ain't my friend!

Ring: the franchise with gaping voids of "It can't be explained" in it's logic Ring: the series that doesn't know what genre it is: horror? Psychological Thriller? Or Sci-Fi? You make the call

Looks like we're getting a bonus feature tonight. Interesting.

Cicadas are not friends! They are nature's equivalent to that guy who goes driving around town at 3am with bass music thumping so hard that it rattles windows!

Ghosts/demon ghosts are almost always linked to something, usually how, why or where they died. They always gain a haunting method if they're the type to kill people, sometimes they have a built in way to circumvent it too. And messing with their remains makes them stronger if it doesn't dispel the ghost. Ways to get stronger over time are also optional. Freddy Krueger has dreams as his boundary and fear of him makes him stronger which is why he let's them get away sometimes (to spread his name and what he did) and outright murders them the next. The only difference is that increase in fear caused by the near death encounter. He can also mess with daydreaming just because it's something that causes a disconnect with reality similar to actual sleep dreams. When his bones are found and moved, the link to dreams fractures and he can suddenly puppeteer the bones to attack the guys that found him. So my theory about Samara is this: Samara is linked to the well she died, and uses video as her medium of attack. We even see the boundary around her well that connects to wherever a video of it is viewed, allowing her spirit to treat it as a wormhole. She would spend the next 7 days regaining her strength to make the kill, haunting them because the video is in their brain now and that's enough to create a link for her powers. When her body is removed from the Well, she loses the boundary trapping her spirit and it gives her greater freedom of movement and ways to act while still maintaining her method of gaining targets to attack once she's strong enough to kill them.

Such a treat, the count appreciates your work sir

Three movies in a row?...You're going to wear yourself out by doing that.

Isn’t this technically a triple feature then

Perfect for the night before Halloween.

The Church of the Algorithm gives this video its blessing, and must it stay clear of the blasphemers from The First Algorithmic Temple (and the many people impersonating their members).

15:56 now everytime there is a ghost in something horror related that says “mommy” or “mother” I want this to be the response to that everytime “I’m not your f**king mommy!” Idk why that’s so funny to me 😂😂😂

There is also a Ring origin story for the woman in the Japanese side of the franchise, Ring Zero which is on Shudder.

26:55 - 27:02 " *RINGS!* ...My God🤦‍♂️"

Loved this,great looks at the movies, and.... yeah Clive has really gotten his own personality now and it shows through great! Even if he slipped in a Sadako or two when talking about Samara.

"Samara hung out with a lot of cicadas" 😂I'm sure Samara's life & death was BEFORE Animal Crossing's time, but now I can't stop imagining her as a cute little New Horizons avatar, hair in front of her face & all, happily catching all kinds of cicadas & setting up a collection in her basement. 🤔I can't tell if it would be appropriate or messed up if all the villagers on her island were horses & deer.

The ghost is actually a kid version of Darkseid, using the cartoon excuse in his quest to find the comfiest couch!

why does Sinclair seem to be an Elton John alter-ego

I also recently noticed the VHS copy of Yor in the first film

i love this review pls never stop these

Ring II was filmed in one of my (second) hometown of Astoria, OR. Yours truly was standing about 25 feet away from the scene where Naomi Watts picks up a rental car. ...yaaaay.

That's funny that you noticed the Yor tape on the shelf of the American remake. I recently rewatched the Japanese original with friends and I noticed that on this shelf, there was a copy of fricking Strike Commando. Out of all the things the American remake choose to be faithful, it was to include a Reb Brown movie on the shelf with the cursed tape. The Ring (either version) would've been a very different movie if Reb Brown was involved.

My ghost has been rewatching Beast Wars

There was also a short film also called rings.

Ypu know, it is weird that the japanese director was involved in the bad Ring 2. But then I remembered Dragon Ball Evolution. Akira Toriyama was "involved" in it's production. Really, it was a way for FOX to attach the original creator as a way to assure us that the film is done by "the right people". Maybe there is another common element I'm missing (both of these films are an adaptation of japanese material...) but I'm putting my money on false assuring...

I actually really enjoyed The Ring Two, and the lore bits it added, and I thought it was pretty clear from the first movie that Aiden was psychic because he had the bit early in the first movie where he's been drawing his cousin's death. Admittedly I'm a sucker for creepy children, so, you know, The Ring Two works for me on that level if nothing else. Also I absolutely know a guy who refers to his parents by their first names, just cause. It's what everyone else calls them so he didn't see a reason not too. I think his younger brother does too.

One thing I think is important is that Samaras mother jumped off that cliff into the sea and died, and I think that's the significance why Rachel has to do it to get back to the real world, because Samara can't follow her this way, it's the way her mother escaped her and something she is afraid of, so she won't come after her. Also, Rachel hears Aidens voice from there, ending her arc of learning to understand him and communicating with him better, also somewhat sealing the deal on the fact that she is ready to make real sacrifices for him, which I think ties into the whole theme of the american movies that difficult children need love and care or they can turn into monsters. Not very subtle, but I think it's a theme that is there. I think Aiden is vulnerable to it because, like Samara, at first Rachel somewhat rejected him. I think this is where the allegations against her that she abuses Aiden are relevant as well. It's certainly not done well, but I think that's what the plot is going for. And Samara in Aiden wants to stay close to the TV because it's still her life line to the world. Of course it comes out silly, I think that's fair to say, it's not well done, it would have been clearer if the cartoons distorted and were disturbing. I feel like the second movie is not good, but also it picks up some of the themes and I always thought the chase scene up the well was properly scary, as well as Aiden taking pictures of himself where Samara can be seen.

I wonder what would happen in a versus movie between Sadako and Samara.

That episode kicked ass!

Akiva Goldsman also co-wrote Transformers: The Last Knight in 2017, so getting a writer who hasn't done a Transformers movie might help the series...

If I recall correctly, another writer did a lot of uncredited rewrites on the first film, which would explain how ultimate hack Eren Kruger (who, again, wrote or co-wrote all of the Michael Bay Transformers movies EXCEPT the at least somewhat competent first one) turned in a classic like THE RING.

Yes! We need more Yor in our lives!

Here in Australia this is coming out on Halloween Good timing

That raises the question: What does happen if you watch the ringtape backwards...? (Also I really love Late Night Double Feature and the Character Clive Sinclaire - I'm always looking foward to the next episode!)

3:57 ehh, they do kind of. The last line Aiden says is “what’s going to happen to the person we show it to?” So it is easy to pick up what they mean, but it is still pretty much assuming.

reads the warning: child abuse yes but sexual assault? maybe with the 3 movie rings but that movie was so disconnected from the ring that i keep forgetting its part of the ringverse

"Grumpy Klingon"? No, that's Nathan Explosion!

The book sequels were even more insane

Sometime you should have Linkara take a look at a webcomic by Brandon Santiago called Erma, a girl born from the son of Ash Williams (I think) and a grown up Samatha.

21:21 Well who wouldn't want to go home and watch Billy and Mandy?

I hope Clive finds love. Like say, someone who looks like Viga in a different costume!

im acualy watching just after midnight right now ;)

Happy Halloween🎃🧡🖤🦇🕷👻☠️💀🦉

The only way the "Waters of another world." Line makes sense is that when you learn about the priest one could possibly think of Holy water since it's supposed to blessed by a Jesus, hence the whole otherworldly thing but that's my two cents but given what happened...nah

God I love these videos.

Lewis I thought your voice was giving out from laughing as Moarte, and somehow you still pull through and deliver before Halloween ends.