The original ONE MISSED CALL wasn’t anything more than a clever take on the ghost/grudge genre of Japanese horror films. The sequel mines the same territory with less scares and a very convoluted ending.
Again, people start receiving cell phone calls from themselves in the future that predict their demise. After her friends die at the hands of the curse, Kyoto (Mimura) and her boyfriend Naoto (Yu Yoshizawa) along with investigative reporter Takako Nozoe (Asaka Seto) try to find the origin of the grudge before it kills them. At first they believe it’s the same curse that killed in the first film, but it soon seems that this is a new killer ghost, possibly originating in Taiwan where Nozoe’s estranged husband (Peter Ho) lives. The only main returning character is Detective Motomiya (Renji Ishibashi).
What this bland sequel is missing is the talent of director Takashi Miike. TV director Renpei Tsukamoto doesn’t bring the right flare to the material that made the original seem fresh, despite its similarities to JU-ON and RINGU. Renpei Tsukamoto builds some tension, but never delivers on the scares, which time and time again fall flat. The kills are also too reminiscent of things we’ve seen before.
As for the acting, the performers are good and create the right amount of sympathy. We care about them, which helps engage us somewhat in their plight. The film moves in the right direction and knows what’s scary, but is just missing the right punch. In addition, the plot begins to get convoluted toward the end, needing too much awareness of exactly what happened in the first film to understand what is going on here. For horror fans, it’s not a waste of time, but there are much better Japanese scare-fests out there than this one.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
