Six months after ejecting the deathly videotape - "see the Ring and you die" - once and for all, Rachel (Watts) and her son Aidan are hoping for a fresh start.

They've quit their Seattle home and moved to the small coastal community of Astoria, Oregon, where she's landed a job on the local paper.

However, the curse of the ring looks like it may have come around again when a local college kid meets his maker in an eerily familiar manner.

Gore Verbinski's American remake of the Ring was actually a decent stab at the original which cleaned up some irritating irregularities and tightened up the plot.

Despite the presence of Nakata himself, this threatens to slump into tired routine once the original premise of the killer tape is discarded in the first reel.

However, slowly-but-surely, it finds its (wet) feet. Vengeful Samara isn't just back to claim the lives of more spotty TV addicts. No - she wants to inhabit the being of young Aidan (Dorfman) himself.

Rachel is forced to rake up old ground to find out what's happening to her son while, all the while, he is being taken over by her of the dodgy barnet and clammy fingers.

There's no shortage of shocks in a creepy tale which is lent a heightened realism by the conviction of the performances, particularly Watts and Dorfman.

Occasionally, it overdoes it - one scene where Bambi's psychologically disturbed brethren ambush Rachel's car is more like a bad day at Animal Hospital.

However, the story unfolds in a heart-lurching manner with the eery images, disturbing plot and finely drawn characters fusing to sear an indelible emotional scar.

The next time some college kid says to you: "I've got the scariest freakin' movie you'll ever see," knock him out.

Tim Evans.