"One Missed Call" is an intense and surprisingly splatter-free thriller by Takashi Miike, creator of frenzy flicks such as "Ichi The Killer" and "MPD Psycho". The film is involving and compelling right from the first minutes, as it introduces a group of identifiable young friends. Whilst in the bathroom, a girl's cell phone rings but she can't answer. The voice mail shows that the call came from her own number and from a date in the near future! When listening to the actual voice mail, the message seems to carry the girl's last words and a disturbingly realistic recording of her deadfall. This mysteriously supernatural ritual repeats itself several times and each time the recipient actually dies on the predestined time! More than enough reason to freak out, if you ask me! A teenage girl and the brother of a deceased girl start to investigate the case and discover that everything relates to the strange Mizunuma family. Okay, I admit that this film's premise sounds an awful lot like "Ringu" (even including the whole family-mystery), but I liked "One Missed Call" so much better than that dull and overrated "classic". Miike's characters are more convincing, the death-sequences are far more spine-chilling and at least the set-pieces are up-to-date! Japan is THE country of brand new technology and this finally is a movie that uses it! No dusty videotapes here, but fancy cell phones and live television shows that exploit urban legends! The story does get confusing at times (especially near the ending) and some of the overlong dialogue could easily have been cut. The biggest trumps are some small details that make this movie almost unbearably scary, like the petrifying ring tone that is used repeatedly and the wild camera-work during the TV-show sequence. Recommended! Better watch it before the American remake ruins it again.
Review of One Missed Call
