The scariest thing in Phone is not the ghost. It is Eun Seo-woo as Young-ju, the little girl who answers the phone. One moment she is sweet, the next she is staring at her mother with pure hatred and clinging to her father. Critics singled her out as one of the most impressive child performances in Asian horror.
The film looks good, with strong lighting, an eerie empty house and a haunting use of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The ringing phone becomes a source of real dread.
The trouble is the storytelling. Phone uses so many flashbacks and dream scenes that it is often hard to tell what is real. Ha Ji-won's character is pushed aside at times, and the investigation relies on too many coincidences.
It also borrows heavily from Ring and The Eye, with a long-haired ghost and a cursed object. If you have seen many of these films, it will feel familiar. But its twisty mystery and that child performance still make it a fun early 2000s scare.
