In the original One Missed Call characters would receive a call from themselves 3 days in the future and would hear themselves die, always horribly. When the 3 days are up they die exactly how they heard it over the phone. Think of the whole “7 days” concept from The Ring. Got it?
Takashi Miike (e.g., Audition) directed the original as a purposely-derivative homage to the popular pissed-off vengeful ghost movies that were all the rage in Japan in the early 2000s. The Japanese have the uncanny ability of churning out sequels to popular films exceptionally quickly. I was not even aware that there was a sequel to One Missed Call until I accidentally stumbled across it while nerding it up in Newbury Comics. In One Missed Call 2 the eerie ringtone-phone calls plague a young schoolteacher and her boyfriend. Add to the mix a journalist and a detective who have both been following the urban legend from the original movie. It’s once again a race against time to solve the “mystery” before our protagonist(s) succumb to the evil phone calls.
Like many of the Japanese horror films I’ve seen, this film becomes needlessly complicated. Many plot points are introduced that are never resolved (e.g., just what did happen to the twin sister of the protagonist when they were children?), and at the risk of sounding racist, I have a great deal of difficulty telling all the Asian women apart. They all have similar names and they all sport the same look.
Nevertheless One Missed Call 2 is worth your time. Even without Miike’s personal stamp, this sequel continues the interesting aspects of the original, most notably the creepy calls/deaths. Apparently the Japanese have video cellphones now (of course I want one immediately). In one effective scene a woman is talking to her friend on said cellphone and sees a ghost creeping up on her friend. Shiver.
1 comment:
I like that the video takes 7 days and the phone only takes 3. That's digital vs. analog for you.
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