Soundtrack Review: The Ring & The Ring 2

By Douglas Strassler Apr 28, 2005, 17:23 GMT

While simply structured, the score includes additional material written by Jim Dooley, Henning Lohner, and Martin Tillman, a small orchestral ensemble and a few soloists.  The instruments Zimmer uses most frequently are the piano and violin, followed by two cellos, to slowly build his thematic material.  Infrequent use of strings and a synthesizer add tension.  The synths employ distortion in their samples, and the string section reacts much the same way to create such combined sound effects as screeching, whining, or striking.

Though less frequent, those cellos (performed by Tillman and Anthony Pleeth) prove fundamental to the score.  Their disjointed performances represent the most horrific moments of the movie, playing off of each other to create a unique method of subtly alarming the viewer.  It is the end titles sequence that proves the most rewarding to listeners, condensing all of Zimmer’s ideas and adding the wail of a young, dying girl, like Samara in the movie.  This is certainly eerie stuff, and Zimmer knows how to tug at just the right visceral emotions to haunt his listeners.

It makes sense to have packaged the score from both films together; Zimmer and company revive a lot of the first film’s original score in The Ring Two.  Additionally, however, Zimmer employs a mass-electrification of four cues for the film; his use of percussion and electric guitar sound more contemporary and rock harder.  This is harder to pick up on during the movie, but upon a more pure listening session with the CD, it seems unnecessary.  The music takes base orchestral performances heard elsewhere in the two movies and overlays blasting guitars and modern percussive rhythms that do more to distract than to entertain.  It is an interesting choice and an odd spin, taking it in this direction, but the remixes do not sound that bad after listening to them several times.  Zimmer makes them jarring enough; far more jarring, in this critic’s opinion, than the film that hosts it. 

Alas, music can only do so much.

The soundtrack is available via Amazon and Amazon UK.

You can view a full track listing in our database.