Following hot on the heels of well known Asian chillers such as Ring, Dark Water and Ju-on comes a ghost story to top them all.

Phone tells the story of an investigative reporter, Ji-Won, who has recently published a controversial article about sex-scandals and has since been receiving a series of menacing phone calls. In an effort to escape the phone calls she changes her number and moves house, but the calls keep coming. When a friend’s young daughter innocently answers the phone she begins to exhibit increasingly crazed behaviour. As she tries to unravel the mystery behind the phone calls Ji-Won uncovers a secret that will change them all.

Stylish and terrifying, Phone follows the growing pedigree of Asian horror, that shock, scare and astonish in equal measure.

Depending on which way you look at it, this is a very good film. On one side if you have watched Ring and Ju-on and Dark Water you might be let down by this. It does seem like a normal run of the mill Asian horror. Fortunately for me I watched this nearly two years ago after buying the Korean import DVD. This was before Ju-on and Dark Water came out. Because the release of Asian films vary greatly with their release dates in their country of origin, over here in the UK we tend to get them all mixed up. This film, however, I watched not too long after I watched the Ring.

Yes this film does fall into the traps of all the other Asian horror films, and yes it does seem to be very generic. But after being a staple fan of Asian horror and also rather dismayed that they all seem to cover the same themes (Curses), I can happily say that Phone is definitely worth a purchase.

Whilst its not difficult to tell that Phone ‘borrows’ a great amount of its elements from chillers like the Ring, it also offers a more straightforward plot and better shocks. Yes it does have your token ‘freaky’ child in it and yes it is about revenge and a curse. It’s also a good little murder mystery with plenty of nice little scares to make you jump. So without giving the plot away, all I will say is that, if you enjoy a good horror with a few good twists and turns in it and are willing to accept that Dark Water was not actually that good (sorry if you a fan but it was bloody boring) then this could be the film for you.

The disc itself has a lovely transfer of the film featuring a commentary, interviews, making of featurette and some TV spots. One other thing that Tartan seems to be doing now is adding a DTS track to their DVD’s. All I can say to this is keep it up. 95% of Asian DVDs have DTS tracks on them because it is more popular in the East and the fact that Tartan are doing this not only show a commitment to bringing out top quality discs but the extra bass comes in very handy in these films. You will jump.

One other thing. The girl is damn creepy.

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