THE PHONE (Korea, 2002)
: : North American Premiere : :



102 minutes, 35mm, in Korean with English subtitles
Directed by: Ahn Byung-ki
Starring: Kim Jang-Hoon, Hong Kyung-Min, Eun Seo-woo

And you thought your cell phone plan was bad? Korea's highest-grossing horror movie, THE PHONE, is a consumerist nightmare unfolding in sterile, over-designed homes that turn into gothic graveyards, as if a layout in
Architecture Today suddenly got hijacked by Mario Bava, and he turned all those contemporary furnishings into mossy headstones.

Career journalista, Ji-Won, is getting all sorts of menacing phone calls after her latest article busted a kiddie-hooker ring wide open. She switches to a new cell phone number and instead of menacing calls from gangland
pimps, she starts getting spooky calls from beyond the grave. Things get worse when she visits her best friend, Ho-Jun, and lets Ho-Jun's daughter answer her cell phone. Before you can say "Linda Blair" this perfect little
tyke is possessed by an evil spirit. Ji-Won, Ho-Jun, Ho-Jun's husband and a gang of other well-dressed yuppies quickly discover that their stylish clothes and chic haircuts are rotten from the inside out and no match for
the spirit of a moldering schoolgirl having the ultimate bad hair day. Not just another clone of Japan's THE RING, this character-driven movie is a very Korean nightmare where all those pretty things you buy are just a cheap
bandaid on a festering wound.

The real bonus in this movie is the cute little possessed girl, Young-Ju, played by the most insane freak in Korea, Eun Seo-Woo, who deserves a special Academy Award for her performance. Whether she¹s French kissing daddy, hissing like a cat, or trying to break her own neck, this tyke is out of control in a way even Maury Povich can't handle.

In true gothic fashion, the family unit turns out to be just another nest of neurotic possessiveness, hidden homicide, and lustmord. As the minutes tick off until "The End" all the stylish ephemera of modern Korean filmmaking does a time lapse dissolve into an Edgar Allan Poe haze with unlimited minutes and no roaming charges.