The original
One Missed Call;
Takashi Miike's romp into commercial horror.
The story centers on Yumi, a college student whose friends begin to receive mysterious voicemails, announced by a creepy children's song. The only one who believes her friend's deaths aren't suicides (at first) is a young policeman named Yamashita, whose sister also received the Call of Death. It was later followed by two sequels - Chakushin Ari 2 and Chakushin Ari Final
Tropes used by the movie:
- Abandoned Hospital
- The Call Knows Where You Live: And will reach you, through any phone. And if you should somehow lose or destroy your phone, it will kindly return it to you.
- Calling Card: Each victim spits out a hard red candy, which the killer gave to her victim when she was taken to the hospital.
- Chekhov's Lecture: A literal one in Yumi's classroom scene, where we are taught what Munchausen by proxy is. The ghost has it
- Child by Rape: Mimiko
- Convicted By Public Opinion: Marie, the mother of Mimiko
- On the other hand, Marie did allow Mimiko to die rather than find help for her and the first sequel revealed that she wished Mimiko was never born and likely abused her, so she is no innocent herself.
- Creepy Child: Mimiko. Li Li in the first sequel.
- Disc One Final Boss: Marie, the mother of Mimiko.
- Evil Phone
- For the Evulz: Kind of subverted, since the spirit has Munchausen by proxy.
- Haunted Technology
- Ironic Nursery Rhyme: The aforementioned ringtone.
- Mind Screw: The ending.
- The first sequel expands it a bit, Yamashita was killed and Yumi disappeared. Taking into account the sequel's Shocking Swerve ending, Yumi had likely been killed by Mimiko off-screen and become a murderous ghost herself before Yamashita arrived.
- Offing the Offspring: Marie allows Mimiko to die of an asthma attack when she discovers that she has been abusing her younger sister for years.
- Police Are Useless: Except for Yamashita. Double Subverted in that he doesn't accompish anything but getting himself killed.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Before she died, Mimiko regularly abused her younger sister to the point of hospitalization. After she died, she got much worse.
- The Unreveal: What's up with Yamashita and Possessed!Yumi?
- The sequels show that Mimiko turns people with tragic childhoods into murderers by bringing out the darkness in their hearts.
- The Virus: The sequel reveals that people with traumatic childhoods who fall prey to the curse become murderous ghosts themselves.
0 reviews