Takashi Miike's One Missed Call: Reviewed!

I was feeling good today, and the vibe only continued when I found not only a really good version of the remastered Star Wars Trilogy DVD set at my neighbourhood vendor, but a copy of Takashi Miike's foray into horror Chakushin Ari (One Missed Call). I'll get to the Star Wars Trilogy after I've gone through all four discs, but for tonight, I'll just share what I thought of what may be Miike's most commercial and mainstream-friendly flick in a while.

For the uninitiated, Takashi Miike, also known as the Rabid Dog of Japanese Cinema, is one of the youngest and most prolific directors to ever begin a career in that country. While his films often toe the line between pure unbridled violence, gore and good taste (case in point: Visitor Q and Audition, also reviewed in this blog) more often than not there is something else he puts in, a touch that makes his creations as identifiable as anything by Fulci or Bava (to the horror geek) or even Hitchcock.

Most audiences will probably feel that One Missed Call is just another tired rehashing of the Japanese ghost-with-long-hair genre. In a sense, they may be right. The past few years has seen a major overflow of horror movies from Korea and Japan, ranging from the criminally stupid (Wishing Stairs, The Phone) to the majorly enjoyable (Ju-On and Korei). Where OMC doesn't really shine with its plot, it makes up for it somewhat by packing in tons of atmosphere, some pretty unexpected twists and turns and an ending that will likely have more than one person smacking themselves on the head asking "what the hell was that?".

The story begins with schoolgirl Yoko who receives a strange message on her mobile, apparently from herself two days in the future. When the appointed date comes around and she dies under horrific circumstances followed by several other girls, it's up to friend Yumi to find out the cause of the deaths and maybe also prevent her own.

Ordinarily I'd pass up on something like this, but seeing Miike's name splashed on the cover made me reconsider, and I have to admit OMC proved to be entertaining even to this jaded horror geek. True enough, he reuses almost every other Japanese horror cliche that we've seen, but he adds enough twists to them to make it interesting. For instance, one girl, Natsumi, gets the mysterious call as well and then proceeds to cancel her account and discard her mobile. When she gets home, she finds a TV crew waiting for her after hearing about the mysterious deaths related to the calls. They offer to stay with her up to the moment of her supposed death, even providing a priest to exorcise any spirits. Her final day is then telecast to a live audience (shades of reality TV ala Visitor Q, or a nod to Romero?) complete with a countdown clock to the precise moment she's supposed to die. This in itself is a rarity in horror cinema, the sense that the victims are part of the real world and not isolated in some surreal pocket of existence.

I won't spoil the fun by revealing what happens to her, but suffice to say the "twist" is well worth it. As much as I like it, there are also times where the horror feels a little contrived and manufactured, which hurts it a little, in my opinion. The audience is also asked to suspend their disbelief a little longer than necessary (especially near the end) but then again we're talking about a movie with a vengeful girl's spirit using mobile phones to warn her victims...

Long story short: completists will probably watch this one anyway, newcomers will find this is a startlingly light introduction to Miike's work, and as for everyone else it's just an average horror flick. As for me, it's good filler material until Gozu and Izo come to our shores.

Ash.ox gives Chakushin Ari a 3 out of 5.