Loved The Ring and Ringu. Didn’t care for The Ring 2. Should I rent Ringu 0 and Ringu 2?
Are you talking about both the Japanese and American versions? If so, then let me just list out all the different films:
—Japan
Ring
Rasen (Spiral)
Ring 2
Ring: Birthday
—US
The Ring
The Ring 2
If you liked the Japanese “Ring”, then you should be fine with Rasen and Ring 2. Stylistically, they’re all the same, though I’ll note that one of either Rasen or Ring 2 ends with some sort of silly genetic experimentation or something stupid like that as the explanation for what’s wrong with the girl.
Ring: Birthday (Ring 0) is rather different from the other movies stylistically, portraying the girl in a rather sensitive and sad light. Personally I thought it was the best of the movies, but it wasn’t as good in a horror sense. It was more a horror in the sense of watching a girl learning that her very presence is a curse to those around her while at the same time trying to live her life as a normal person, dating guys, going to school, etc. and everything going wrong and getting worse the harder she tries.
Just to expand on that a little bit, personally when I watched the films I felt like they were gradually ruining what had been laid out in the first film, similar to the Matrix sequels. Ultimately, knowing more about what is happening and why ends up hurting the story even though theoretically that knowledge should be interesting. Midichlorians brought the mysticism of The Force down to being some pseudo-science bullshit pulled from some guy’s butt and the same with the Ring series. Ultimately, the secret of the tape and the girl are best left unexplored. But, I still thought they were watchable and enjoyable, so I wouldn’t warn you to stay away the way I would with the Matrix sequels or Star Wars prequels.
I wouldn’t include Ring: Birthday in the above though. To a large extent it’s an entirely different movie and could just as well be considered as having no relation to the other Ring movies.