One missed call (2003)

Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: horror
Cast: Shibasaki Kou, Tsutsumi Shinici, Kazue Fukiishi, Nagata Anna, Ida Atsushi, Tsutsui Mariko, Imai Kumiko, Oshima Karen, Shimizu Sena,
Synopsis: One night while being out Yumi's friend Yoko receives weird phone call from her own number. The phone call is from 2 days into the future. When exactly the time arrives, Yoko dies from suspicious reasons. Few days later same happens to Kenji. Yumi understands that there is some creepy thing behind the deaths of her friends and with the help of ex-detective whose sister died the same way, Yumi decides to find the way to stop it.
Rating: 2/5
Sunday night is horror night! Just kidding! I bet most of you know already that I am really bad with horror movies - I am easily scared and I just hate watching scary things. Luckily I can say that the first movie of "One missed call" did not make me feel any kind of emotion at all. Though it would still be scary to receive a call from my own number. I rather have my ex calling me after 2,5 years to say that he misses me than have a call from myself (story of today).

The main character Yumi has a big childhood trauma that you will understand by the end of the movie. She is introvert who is suspicious about everything and has big trust issues. It is weird that a lot of times she jumps into places head in front and few minutes later she is terrified with fear. Is she so stupid that she did not see it coming when she went there? Yeah, let's go alone to the place where it was supposed to start and believe that we find sweet adorable puppy from there and not some freaking zombie'sh thing that wants to kill you?? It makes no sense to me. But I give credit to Shibasaki Kou for decent acting. I must say that young she reminds me Aibu Saki for some reason.

I was surprised that they allowed Yamashita-san to be investigating for so long time, because usually they should be removed from investigation when it is something connected to their family. Anyway,
Yamashita-san's sister was also one of the victims and that made him investigate it. He wants to believe that he is able to find the truth and stop it. But I liked that he was the only one from the police to believe that there was something behind the deaths and it should be investigated. Sadly the truth is that most of the time police cannot do anything when a crime has not been done yet.

Natsumi is one of the victims and Yumi's close friend. I think with her the unrealistic things started. After getting the call, she totally looses it and is willing to do everything, even go on a live-TV show. I kind of feel sorry for her, but this is the point where people started to believe the stories that were told about it. I think the easiest way would have been not to own a phone.

As most horror movies connected to children has "One missed call" also the usually the background story to make you sympathize and feel sorry for what has happened. I am not sure even if it makes movie a worse or not. In a way, it is much less scary later and it kind of teaches that you should love and protect children. Though, horror movies purpose is to make people feel scared as hell and making in into melodrama makes it much much less horrifying. For me, it kind of ruins the movie. I have gone on and seriously making psycho-analyses about the movie and characters during the past few nights!

The bad sides of the movie are that sadly there are way too many unrealistic scenes. For me the one thing that ruins a horror movie is when I see the "ghost" who is doing everything. Usually they end up not being scary at all and you can see all the special effects that they have used to make it and then it looks really stupid. It happens many many times in "One missed call". There were so many moments when I started to laugh and for the first time I did not scream during watching horror movie. Though I still preferred to turn my head away most of the time or watch the screen between my fingers. Other than that, the movie is rather slow paced with no other special music than the ring tone, so no creepy sounds.

The original story was written when there was a phone breakthrough in society. Everybody started to own one and send messages and calling all the time was usual thing to see on streets. (Now of course it is not so bad in public transport, because you are not allowed to speak too loud). The story was written basically to scare people who use phone too much.
I was surprised to find out that the movie is made by Miike Takashi, Even though I have seen only few movies by him, he is one of the best and most controversial movie directors Japan has. "One missed call" definitely is not his best work and critics have said that the movie is too similar to "Ring" and "The Grudge" and just as those movies, "One missed call" has American version too, that of course is much worse than original movie.

Spoiler-review: In the end after getting stabbed for the first time, Yamashita-san believes that he went back in time and helped Mimiko. Of course this was only his imagination. Yumi, while being possessed, killed Yamashita-san in the hospital and went missing after it. During the movie they actually do not give reasons why Mimiko did it and how it actually started. That gives the room for the squeals.