In the past 6 or 7 years, Asian horror has been mass-introduced to the west. It began with the stunning Ring, and was followed by the reasonable Dark Water and the enjoyable enough Eye, to name but 2.
This is Phone, not to be confused with Phone Booth of the following year, which focuses on the obsession we have for mobile phones/cellphones. It takes the aspect of phones from Ring and makes it the central plot here.
The main character (Whose name slips my mind) is...well...what she is is never actually established except in a brief conversation where it's implied she's some kind of journalist. Good to see no nod to Ring there *ahem*.
She starts receiving nonsensical phone calls on her cellphone and one day her friend's daughter answers it, only to seemingly go slightly mad and begin screaming really loudly. In an art gallery that's *probably* not the accepted etiquette, but feel free to correct me.
Essentially we suspect that pesky paranormal elements might be at play here which obviously makes it completely different to Ring, The Eye, and Dark Water. Yes, highly original fare.
Y'see, for as reasonably told as the story is, it's z-list to Ring's a-list. There are few genuine scares, and a complete lack of empathy for the characters who are as bland as a mug of Horlicks. The direction's passable, but the apathy it drew from me is not generally decent enough to commend as quality.
If all this weren't bad enough already, the last 3rd is so bizarrely laughable and appallingly unbelievable it ruins any good work carried out before it. I'm not going to spoil anything but let's just say there's a 'resurrection' moment which had me laughing out loud at its preposterousness.
The *one* saving grace Phone has is the quite magnificent performance from Seo-woo Eun as the daughter - possessed by something or other her disturbing performance is as good as if not better than Linda Blair's similarly possessed Regan in the Exorcist. She is quite remarkable and is a lot younger than Blair was.
Besides this solitary positive note this is a joke, and suffers from derivative story telling and poor characterisation, not to mention ludicrous moments which defy you to suspend disbelief from floor #30.
Avoid.
This is Phone, not to be confused with Phone Booth of the following year, which focuses on the obsession we have for mobile phones/cellphones. It takes the aspect of phones from Ring and makes it the central plot here.
The main character (Whose name slips my mind) is...well...what she is is never actually established except in a brief conversation where it's implied she's some kind of journalist. Good to see no nod to Ring there *ahem*.
She starts receiving nonsensical phone calls on her cellphone and one day her friend's daughter answers it, only to seemingly go slightly mad and begin screaming really loudly. In an art gallery that's *probably* not the accepted etiquette, but feel free to correct me.
Essentially we suspect that pesky paranormal elements might be at play here which obviously makes it completely different to Ring, The Eye, and Dark Water. Yes, highly original fare.
Y'see, for as reasonably told as the story is, it's z-list to Ring's a-list. There are few genuine scares, and a complete lack of empathy for the characters who are as bland as a mug of Horlicks. The direction's passable, but the apathy it drew from me is not generally decent enough to commend as quality.
If all this weren't bad enough already, the last 3rd is so bizarrely laughable and appallingly unbelievable it ruins any good work carried out before it. I'm not going to spoil anything but let's just say there's a 'resurrection' moment which had me laughing out loud at its preposterousness.
The *one* saving grace Phone has is the quite magnificent performance from Seo-woo Eun as the daughter - possessed by something or other her disturbing performance is as good as if not better than Linda Blair's similarly possessed Regan in the Exorcist. She is quite remarkable and is a lot younger than Blair was.
Besides this solitary positive note this is a joke, and suffers from derivative story telling and poor characterisation, not to mention ludicrous moments which defy you to suspend disbelief from floor #30.
Avoid.