I haven't read other people's comments yet which will leave this opinion unbiased.
I believe RING 0 was a phenomenal film and a brilliant prequel to the first two films RINGU and RINGU 2. I noticed a different director made it and the actress who played Sadako was not in it apparently so I thought it was a director cashing in on the popularity of the first two films. How brilliantly I was proven wrong?
RING 0 seemed no different in terms of direction and the time period. It was as though all 3 films were made at the same time, I love it when there isn't a horridly noticeable gap between productions, which ruins the feeling you get from the original.
At first, RING 0 seemed to throw me off and again; I was worried that it would not be the same style as the previous two movies. However, RING 0 was directed and produced in what looks to be the perfect way for a late prequel. It gave us pretty much all the info we were left wanting from the two movies.
So apart from filling in the storyline and time gap for a prequel, how did the movie rate in terms of horror? Well horrific is one word to describe it. I'm very hard to scare but all three of the RING movies have managed to give me intense nightmares and fears of a little girl with black hair and RING 0 pretty much smashed my nerves completely with it's use of Sadako. Throughout the film they seem to make Sadako stand out in the movie like she will have in the minds of many fans and that did it for me. After the first two movies I would sometimes think I saw the shape of Sadako reflected in my TV, or in a corner. RING 0 puts those images on screen, right in front of you which shatters whatever you have left of confidence.
I genuinely found myself cowering in a sense as to what would be around the corner, what would the character see when he/she turned around. It brings the semi-realistic fears I had from RING and RING 2 to life in this movie and just makes it worse for me. Scenes where you would just see Sadako's feet walking by the camera across the screen and a character not daring to look up.
I should leave it there, to say the least this film was just as intense, perhaps surprisingly more so with the use of images of Sadako here and there such as the forest scene at the end of the movie which was just plain unnerving that she was there wherever you looked. Not attacking you, not dead, just standing there, idle
Spooked me out big time.