(2006)
A class of high school juniors takes a field trip to Seoul, Korea and as part of a homework assignment they are all provided with cell phones to document various points of interest. On route they learn that their classmate, Pam, who they all mercilessly bullied, hung herself back home. Moment’s later one student’s phone rings with a creepy ringtone. Although the phone indicates that the call is from Pam, the message left is the student’s own voice with an attached photo of herself hanging from a rope. The date and time of the call suggests that the call came from the following day – tomorrow. The next day the student dies exactly as her call from the future foretold.
Soon another student’s phone rings with a call from the future and she too perishes. The class concludes that this is payback from a vengeful Pam and that they are all destined to meet a similar fate. Adding to the hysteria, the calls from the future indicate that the person who receives the call will not die as long as he/she forwards it to someone else in the class. People who receive the “forwarded” call die without being given the forwarding option. Eventually all hell breaks loose and friendships devolve into paranoia as students are forced to decide whether to forward the call they receive, which is a death sentence to whoever receives it, or not do anything, assuring their own demise.
I’m a fan of the One Missed Call series because I love the ridiculous concept. This installment is extra fun because of the Battle Royale element added to the mix. In one of my favorite scenes a bullied kid gains the upper hand over his bully when he is given the opportunity to forward his “death” call. Why not a higher rating? While I like the Battle Royale concept, One Missed Call 3 ultimately jettisons the rules of the “curse” established in the previous installments. This is not egregious but it does sap some if the strength of the original film. Also, the deaths are not as spectacular or as original, which is one thing that set this series apart from other J-horror “curse” films. Still this one is a lot of fun and it reminded me of how much I like the creepy ringtone; so much, in fact, that I downloaded it for my phone. Take a listen,
9 comments:
They made a part 3??? I wasn't aware of a One Missed Call 2!
Yahoo recently released a list of the ten worst-reviewed movies of the decade. One Missed Call was on there. Funny that supposedly one of the 10 worst films of the decade has spawned 2 sequels. I thought One Missed Call was a little underrated anyway.
You might be thinking of the One Missed Call remake. The original Japanese version is pretty decent and I enjoyed the sequels. The American remake was weak.
You can forward a death curse?!? That so rules.
I saw part of Forgetting Sarah Marshall recently and they make fun of Kristen Bell's character for being in "that movie where your cell phone can kill you." Clearly they were talking about the Pulse remake, but this one would be just as much a subject of ridicule... EXCEPT that the Japanese can float a concept like this in a way that Americans never can.
In some future 'thon I need to do a major J-horror roundup. Not this year, though.
I watched the J-horror one ...last year?...I think. Considering the slim amount of movies I watched you'd think I could remember when I watched them.
Anyhoots. I thought the original was pretty fun.
It seems to me like they've really run this idea into the ground.
I liked the Japanese version of this series as well.
Is that your phone ringing JSP?
I also think the Japanese can run an idea into the ground and still make it go like nobody else. Once I borrowed a friend's bootleg VHS tapes of several different anime TV shows and they ALL featured giant robots. I couldn't freakin' believe it.
I still haven't seen the last fifteen minutes of the first one, which I started two years ago. I enjoyed it, but I have a bad habit of falling asleep during movies.
Having scrolled past this a bunch of times, I really like the spooky class photo pic at the top.
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