Your good friend has a message on her cell phone. The call is from her own cell phone number – dated three days in the future. When she listens to the call it’s clearly her own voice, and it’s filled with terror. Three days later on the exact time, that the call was made – she dies. Friends, whose numbers were stored in her phone, starts getting similar calls – and they die, too. Then you get a call……..

Sounds familiar?

Well, Miike’s latest is nicely made. A number of effective horror effects; a couple of them might even be new. The problem is, that the story is overly familiar. The Japanese “Ring” films, the Korean “Phone” and other similar films went through all that – it’s old hat by now.

Miike is perhaps the most prolific Director around – 3 to 6 films a year speaks for itself. Should he make fewer films, and take a little longer to develop better stories? Well, I don’t even know, if he can work like that, or if he simply has to churn them out fast….but at least to me this one was disappointing.

However, if you don’t mind having heard the story before, the film is nicely done and will give you some good shocks along the way.

Uffe Stegmann
March 14, 2004

GALLERY