I think the production company says it all when it comes to describing where this movie belongs. The second the Toilet Pictures logo flashed up on the screen, I knew this movie was, in fact, going to be a big piece of poop. But wait! There was one good aspect to the movie! Other than that it was crap. But let me explain…
Phone is a movie about a young journalist named Ji-won. She let loose the floodgates on some sexual predators and is seeking refuge away from the limelight. She moves
Some scary images, not much though…
into her sister and her husband’s second home (rich right?) and lives there until things die down. She changes her number to the only one that the telephone company could get for her (998-6644 or something…) and lives in solitude. But she is still getting these calls from stalkers. And then some inhuman voice of a woman being tortured. Scary, right?
Am I Kawaii desu?
From this point, Ji-won is on a mission to discover who had the number before her and what happened to them. What happens implicates a lot of people in this love affair/ murder plot that gets a little too complicated for a movie storyline. And that’s where the film lost me.
The acting… wasn’t that bad. I feel bad now looking up the woman who played Ji-won, Ha Ji-won (why didn’t they change her name?) and
This girl is a game changer.
realizing she’s an acclaimed actress in South Korea and was nominated for her performance in this film. She wasn’t bad, but I don’t think any of the actors in this movie grasped the entire concept of supernatural horror film in this one.
But there is a little girl who understood what it was to be in a horror movie. Eun Seo-woo did. Playing the adorable niece of Ji-won, Yeong-ju, Eun Seo-woo was a dynamo in this movie. She was always cute, but she delivered such a mature performance when she was possessed in the film that I was actually surprised and chilled. Her character develops an Electra complex and falls in love with her dad,
An nyoung? (That’s hello in Korean.)
and she does it so well. And she’s like 6 or 7 and saying “Shit” onscreen! Her performance deserved an Oscar or award or something, because I fell in love with her and her combination of comedic terror in the movie. It was wonderful.
The rest of the film was average. There were some scary moments but nothing to severe. The Grudge-like long black hair always gets me but that was about it. It didn’t go anywhere horror movies haven’t gone, and was almost tame enough for a thriller film. It had the twist of a thriller film, which I appreciated, but wasn’t dark enough to seal the deal. I’ll give a nice try to Ahn Byeong-ki and Toilet Pictures, but you may wanna change the production company name… It throws out the wrong signals. 5.2 out of 10.
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