I don’t believe in ghosts. There’s just something about their portrayal in films and on reality TV that makes me doubt their existence beyond my own personal feelings. But I will admit that the treatment of ghosts in some films can be quite terrifying, yes, even to a guy that doesn’t believe in them to begin with.
American films about the paranormal all seem to exhibit similar qualities. There’s a standard list of rules and tropes for ghost stories that are inherently American and more often then not these things show up in an American film. Japanese films are a different kind of beast altogether. Perhaps it is the culture of Japan, the way they think about the after life or their own spiritual ideas for a basis but ghosts in Japanese films are always scarier than their American counter parts.
Throughout the years ghosts have taken part in the possession of all manner of things. People, of course, but also cars, dolls, body parts, and the topic of today’s dissection: cell phones. Besides possible the Internet at large, I can think of no better tool for a malevolent spirit to use in the selection and haunting of it’s victims than a cell phone.
One Missed Call is very well put together film from the master of the genre Takashi Miike. Miike creates a very bleak and dark vision of the world in this film. His gift for visual story telling is bar none some of the best on the planet, and he makes you believe it after this movie. The characters and scares used in the movie draw you in and the mystery makes you stay.
The process of the fear from used with the phones in One Missed Call is one of the scariest things that has been conceived of for a modern setting. First, the mysterious ringing phone with a ring tone that the character doesn’t recognize. Think about it, what would YOU do if your phone started to ring with a ring tone that isn’t yours? Not to mention a ring tone that, while a delightful ditty for children, harbors all of the qualities and sounds of every unintentional creepy song you’ve ever heard in your life. Personally, a heart attack and new pants would be in order after just this one incident.
Next follows the voice mail, from the future. Picture it, you’ve got a voice mail on your phone. You dial the voice mail number so that the annoying icon on your screen will go away, but you listen to this one before you hit the delete button. The voice you hear sounds familiar, it’s your own voice. You hear something crack and then the scream, your own scream. Then the voice mail ends.
This is where the brilliance of the story truly lies. A characters premonition of their own death has long been a plot device used in stories, and this is simply the updated and modern version of that idea. Instead of taking the story to dreams or deja vu, they grounded it firmly in the time the film was made and I feel that helps in creating it’s success.
But don’t think that the fright ends with the voice mail. Okay, now it’s two days later and you’re walking down an alley by yourself. You decide to call a friend so you’ll have someone to talk to until you get somewhere safe. It starts to ran. You think that’s weird and you say so out loud. Then you realize the words you’ve just spoken are the ones that you heard in the voice mail. Before you know it you’ve been thrust through the chain link fence over a train track, just as the train passes under it. You lay on the ground in pieces, somehow maintaining consciousness and you pray for death. It comes, but not until you’ve felt all of the pain.
It could be argued that this part of the curse in the film is the most gruesome, because it results in the character’s death, but I disagree. That moment right before the character’s death is inevitable is the pinnacle of fear. Why? Because at that moment they still have hope that they’ll be okay, there’s a part in the back of their head that tells them Everything is okay, there’s nothing to worry about. Once you get forced through a fence and onto a speeding train by an unseen force every fiber of your being is screaming I’M GONNA DIE.
While One Missed Call might use a vehicle for fear that not everyone finds appealing or scary, it is truly brilliant in the way that it has conceived a tale that is relatable to everyone. Would your life really be over if you didn’t have your cell phone? Or is your life going to end because of it?
