With each new tech boom comes its horrors. It is not a novel phenomenon that the horror of horror films inflict via the medium of new technology. Evil has channeled itself into the home through the television set (Poltergeist), the video player (The Ring), and surely any number of films about computers and the internet. Here, the technological culprit is obvious. In this sense, Phone is part of a technophobic trend in horror films, where new technology enters the home and transmits its evil till all the characters lose control. Needless to say, this is an ever-present fear in times of quick technological progress.
But while it's nice to mention Phone in the same breath as the astute Poltergeist and The Ring, the film really does not deserve it. It is a truly poor film that is flawed from the script level right through to the acting. In every good horror film (I dare say) the thing that scares should build from something more inane into fully blown uncontrollable horror. Even the poor ones accomplish this - but Phone doesn't. Instead it is merely contented to put forward scare after scare and shock after shock that do nothing to escalate our fear. Instead, it counter-productively turns the scare item into an annoyance. The source of horror doesn't grow, it is just revealed. The characters don't lose control of the situation - their little control over evil technology is the same in the last scene as it was in the first. Everyone starts off in the frying pan and everyone stays there.
Another glaring problem with Phone is its lack of focus. In between taking cheap potshots at us, the film segues into maternal warfare, forbidden schoolgirl romance, sex-deviant thriller, investigative detective stuff, piano lessons, spirit possession, and it even manages to work out its own brand of Electra complex - a little girl sabotages her parents' lovemaking, and later kisses her father on the mouth (in possibly the most perversely exciting scene of the film - that's how bad it is). None of these subsections gel to tell a cohesive story or convey a cohesive mood. Phone would have benefited from concentrating on a couple of the above themes and developing them further, cutting out all the unnecessary frills along the edge - which it did, but only after more than an hour, when the film was already dead and buried. In other the words, the movie starts one hour too early, and you'd benefit from missing as much of the first two thirds as possible.
Phone also pulls out every cliché available to the horror genre: disturbed little girls, long-haired evil women, taps that spout strange things, lifts with their own minds, nursery rhyme chants, dolls, portraits, and strange faces in mirrors. None of these are executed with any scare factor. Also, look out for some amusing name-dropping: an Evian bottle, a Samick piano, and of course, the ever-present Motorolla. All-in-all, this is as cheap a flick as it gets. It takes you for a fool and you'll no doubt reciprocate.
½ Star.
But while it's nice to mention Phone in the same breath as the astute Poltergeist and The Ring, the film really does not deserve it. It is a truly poor film that is flawed from the script level right through to the acting. In every good horror film (I dare say) the thing that scares should build from something more inane into fully blown uncontrollable horror. Even the poor ones accomplish this - but Phone doesn't. Instead it is merely contented to put forward scare after scare and shock after shock that do nothing to escalate our fear. Instead, it counter-productively turns the scare item into an annoyance. The source of horror doesn't grow, it is just revealed. The characters don't lose control of the situation - their little control over evil technology is the same in the last scene as it was in the first. Everyone starts off in the frying pan and everyone stays there.
Another glaring problem with Phone is its lack of focus. In between taking cheap potshots at us, the film segues into maternal warfare, forbidden schoolgirl romance, sex-deviant thriller, investigative detective stuff, piano lessons, spirit possession, and it even manages to work out its own brand of Electra complex - a little girl sabotages her parents' lovemaking, and later kisses her father on the mouth (in possibly the most perversely exciting scene of the film - that's how bad it is). None of these subsections gel to tell a cohesive story or convey a cohesive mood. Phone would have benefited from concentrating on a couple of the above themes and developing them further, cutting out all the unnecessary frills along the edge - which it did, but only after more than an hour, when the film was already dead and buried. In other the words, the movie starts one hour too early, and you'd benefit from missing as much of the first two thirds as possible.
Phone also pulls out every cliché available to the horror genre: disturbed little girls, long-haired evil women, taps that spout strange things, lifts with their own minds, nursery rhyme chants, dolls, portraits, and strange faces in mirrors. None of these are executed with any scare factor. Also, look out for some amusing name-dropping: an Evian bottle, a Samick piano, and of course, the ever-present Motorolla. All-in-all, this is as cheap a flick as it gets. It takes you for a fool and you'll no doubt reciprocate.
½ Star.