One Missed Call (2003)
aka Chakushin ari
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Yashuki Akimoto & Minako Dairak

Another "vengeful teenage girl" story a la The Grudge, The Ring, The Vengeful Teenage Girl … this time, teens and twentysomethings begin to receive strange messages on their cellphones that record their deaths, and the messages are time-stamped with each future time of death.

Pretty good concept, actually. It helps to make One Missed Call better than most of these genre flicks. The suspense is high; some of the scenes are actually scary; and the degeneration into out-and-out preposterousness is staved off as long as possible. As usual, though, Takashi Miike makes sure the ending is more of a head-scratcher than a shocker, leading one to suspect that the whole film has been a joke on people who dig this type of film.

I enjoyed this movie quite a bit while I was watching it, but in retrospect, now I'm all, "Eh."

Review by Ugo Struck