This must have been one of the worst movie watching decisions I have ever made. At first I was going to watch "Cloverfield". "It is like "The Blair Witch Project. People complain it's confusing and dizzying. Don't waste your money," said the ticket girl. I surely did not want to relive that awful experience at "Blair Witch," when I was at the verge of throwing up despite the fact that I was not even looking directly at the screen for 75% of the running time. So that is why I wound up with this one. I never thought the ticket girl's last words would prove to be so ironic.
I knew it was from a Japanese original. And knowing how it went in "The Ring", "The Grudge" and "Dark Water", the American remake would surely suck. I still went into this hoping to get a good scare, which I like once in a while.
First the things I liked about it: The beginning was interesting for me. I liked the fact that the main characters were medical students (shades of European horror classic "Anatomy"). And, for their credit, they did get the creepy atmosphere down. They had some scary stuff in those scenes at the hospital when the lead female (Shannyn Sossamon) decided to crawl down an underground tunnel to face the ghost by herself (what horror movie does not have such a scene, really?)
However, the silliness and "derivative"-ness of the storyline keeps getting in the way. You cannot help but groan that you have seen all this before. A series of people are getting killed by getting a mysterious voice mail on their cellphone. Then they rush against time in order to find out how to beat the curse before the heroine's time came. Wasn't this also how "The Ring" worked? To top it all off, they also stooped down to copying "Sadako"-like jerky movements (combined with the "Sadako" -like TV image static effect) for the main malevolent ghost at the end.
OK, I had a good laugh with myself after watching this. Haha! See you at the Razzies next year, Edward Burns!
I knew it was from a Japanese original. And knowing how it went in "The Ring", "The Grudge" and "Dark Water", the American remake would surely suck. I still went into this hoping to get a good scare, which I like once in a while.
First the things I liked about it: The beginning was interesting for me. I liked the fact that the main characters were medical students (shades of European horror classic "Anatomy"). And, for their credit, they did get the creepy atmosphere down. They had some scary stuff in those scenes at the hospital when the lead female (Shannyn Sossamon) decided to crawl down an underground tunnel to face the ghost by herself (what horror movie does not have such a scene, really?)
However, the silliness and "derivative"-ness of the storyline keeps getting in the way. You cannot help but groan that you have seen all this before. A series of people are getting killed by getting a mysterious voice mail on their cellphone. Then they rush against time in order to find out how to beat the curse before the heroine's time came. Wasn't this also how "The Ring" worked? To top it all off, they also stooped down to copying "Sadako"-like jerky movements (combined with the "Sadako" -like TV image static effect) for the main malevolent ghost at the end.
OK, I had a good laugh with myself after watching this. Haha! See you at the Razzies next year, Edward Burns!