I really didn't enjoy Phone at all, for several reasons.
To start with, it just contained far too many elements we've already seen in previous modern Asian horror movies - check out the hair coming out of the tap (lifted straight from Nakata Hideo's infinitely superior movie Dark Water), the haunted technology (from Kurosawa's Kairo, from Nakata's Ring), the ghost with long black hair (from just about every Asian horror film since Ring)... simply pinching bits of other movies and putting them together doesn't make it more frightening than all the aforementioned movies put together.
I think that's sad as I did find the storyline engaging and involving, yes, but about as scary as a Hallmark Channel offering. Not for nothing was it made by Buena Vista - it really comes across as a Disney stab at horror. It's also rated PG, therefore the shocks are few and far between.
And don't even think about getting an atmosphere of tension: everything is just thrown in together, with no build-up possible because the pace of the first half of the movie is just way too fast to allow any. When the second half of the movie kicks in, it gives the fairly decent storyline time to develop, and improves considerably towards the end (though its attempt at a shocker-ending like Ring is daft, to put it mildly).
Maybe if you haven't actually seen Ring, The Eye, Kairo and Dark Water, you might find this scary - but I thought it was a rip-off and a waste of time and money, when there are far superior movies in this style already on the market.
To start with, it just contained far too many elements we've already seen in previous modern Asian horror movies - check out the hair coming out of the tap (lifted straight from Nakata Hideo's infinitely superior movie Dark Water), the haunted technology (from Kurosawa's Kairo, from Nakata's Ring), the ghost with long black hair (from just about every Asian horror film since Ring)... simply pinching bits of other movies and putting them together doesn't make it more frightening than all the aforementioned movies put together.
I think that's sad as I did find the storyline engaging and involving, yes, but about as scary as a Hallmark Channel offering. Not for nothing was it made by Buena Vista - it really comes across as a Disney stab at horror. It's also rated PG, therefore the shocks are few and far between.
And don't even think about getting an atmosphere of tension: everything is just thrown in together, with no build-up possible because the pace of the first half of the movie is just way too fast to allow any. When the second half of the movie kicks in, it gives the fairly decent storyline time to develop, and improves considerably towards the end (though its attempt at a shocker-ending like Ring is daft, to put it mildly).
Maybe if you haven't actually seen Ring, The Eye, Kairo and Dark Water, you might find this scary - but I thought it was a rip-off and a waste of time and money, when there are far superior movies in this style already on the market.