Since the US version ofOne Missed Callthat came out in 2008 is rightfullyconsidered one of the worst remakes in history, the original film somehow found itself in the shadow of that disaster. Directed by the cult Japanese director,Takashi Miike,the original horror centers around a series of gruesome deaths, preceded by each victim getting a strangemessagefrom themselves that predicts the last moments of their life. WhileOne Missed Callwas criticized for overusing thetypical elements of classic J-horrors(a curse transmitted through digital devices, macabre use of elevators,ghosts who don’t want peace but wish for their vengeance fulfilledinstead, etc.), Miike’s film is actually a love letter to all its predecessors — a letter filled with blood, dismemberment, and pessimistic observations about human nature. Revisiting the original now, it is also interesting to note all the ways it feels relevant in terms of the topics explored: especially, the waymodern technologies that were meant to connect people are actually causing the opposing effect, with potentially devastating results.
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The story centers around agroup of young friends who start dying one by one after receiving ominous messagestimestamped with a future date. Yumi Nakamura (Kô Shibasaki, known at the time by the genre fans forBattle Royale) suspects that those deaths aren’t the accidents everyone believes them to be. While thecurse spreads, picking up new victims from a previous one’s contacts list, Yumi teams up to investigate with a police detective (Shin’ichi Tsutsumi), whose sister died in a similar way. The similarities between this premise and many other J-horrors, variousurban legends, and evenclassic American slashers, in which young people often find themselves targeted by an unknown person or entity, became a big source of criticism directed at Takashi Miike at the time.
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By 2003,Miiki was universally praised as the author behind such uncompromisingly wild genre staplesasAudition(1999) andIchi the Killer(2001). So, his presumed dive into the realm of more traditional commercial cinema came as a disappointing surprise to many critics. In reality, Miike has always been a prolific director (sometimes making up to four movies in one year), always willing to experiment with genres, narratives and limits. The notion of spirits inhabiting inanimate objects Miike decides to center the plot around has always existed in Japanese culture. At the turn of the century, the authors exploring this ideaturned their attention towards various technological devices. Following in the footsteps of one of the greatest techno horrors ever made,Kiyoshi Kurosawa’sPulse(2001), Miike doubles down on this premise,reflecting on the unfortunate consequences of the digital era.
The Death Scenes in ‘One Missed Call’ are Gruesome, But They Serve to Make a Point
Starting from the opening scene where the friends get together in a restaurant and one of them gets the death-premonition voicemail, almost every shot in the film is filled with people obsessively doing something on their phones. The camera, helmed byHideo Yamamoto(who worked onRing 2and would go on to shootThe Grudgein 2004), maintains a sense of intentional detachment, while the use of hushed colors and somber shadowing show the world as an inherently lonely place for its inhabitants who are terribly disconnected from each other. One of the major themes inOne Missed Callis thatviolence is a vicious circle, and traumas tend to ricochet. Apart from physical violence, general indifference isone of such traumas that produce more misery and pain, like a literal curse.One Missed Callcontinues the thematic trend set by another J-horror classic,Hideo Nakata’sRing(1998), but also further develops another topic from it:the fascination of modern society with violence and the willingness to watch it happen.
It’s the motif that runs throughout the whole film, with various characters, both major and random, actively discussing the morbid details of their friends' deaths. One character even owns a whole database of photos depicting people before and after their passing. Miike,well known for his excessive methods and style,makes a point of showing the deaths in the most graphic and almost grotesque way(the first death scene involves an image of a severed arm still dialing numbers on a flip phone), demonstrating how any horrible thing can be turned into a macabre show. Continuing this motif and precedingLate Night with the Devilby many years,One Missed Callalso has a major storylinedepicting a TV show that has no qualms about exploiting a person’s misfortune as entertainment.
After receiving a message predicting her death, one of Yumi’s friends, Natsumi (Kazue Fukiishi), is promptly approached by the producers and dragged to the studio. As the girl is frantically awaiting her fate on live television, the hosts and the crew are preoccupied with their own agendas. The police officers watch the program while eating and laughing, and the shots of large screens transmitting the show on the streets of Tokyo showpeople passing by, only starting to pay attention when Natsumi dies on air. Whilehyperbolic and satirical, this episode is perhaps alsothe most frightening and relatablein the whole film as it puts the central mystery about the origin of the curse and all the scares that come with it into a very relevant context. Before the internet really conquered the world,Miike managed to build a scary and sad story about the technologies that give people access to all sorts of information— as well as a chance to completely disregard what’s happening right next to them.
One Missed Call
