One Missed Call (2003)

One Missed Call: Not One To Miss | 3.5/5

Written by Noah Dietz: 5/17/2025

Takashi Miike is a guy I’ve been circling for years. Since watching Audition in early 2020 as my first dip into his work (something that, in hindsight, was a little bit of a leap) I’ve been really interested in seeing more of what he has to offer. Frankly, his reputation as an incredibly out there director is what made it take so long after watching Audition to actually get into more of his work. I knew he was known as one of the hyperviolence guys with a few of his films landing on the “wtf did I just watch” style of Reddit lists, but I’m thrilled that he’s far more than that. I’d love to talk about how weirdly good he is at adapting comics and video games into film, but that’s not what this review is about. We're here to talk about his haunted cell phone movie, so let’s get into it.

The film focuses on a simple concept which many have compared (understandably) to the 1998 film, Ring. A group of friends receive calls from their own phone numbers coupled with a ringtone that none of them are familiar with. The message left by the mysterious call is marked by the phone as having been received at varying times in the future, and when the date of the message comes to pass they die in diverse, violent ways. Trying to dispose of their phones before the dates in question doesn’t help either, leading to increasingly desperate attempts to avoid their impending doom by solving the mystery of who is haunting them.

I will say that, while its core concept is very similar to Ring, I believe it manages to stand on its own better than critics felt it did back in the day. As we move further from such landmark films, it’s easier to acknowledge that this is far from the worst of the J-horror hits that came into the film scene in the ’90s and early ’00s. I’ll happily say that this is mostly better because of what Miike brings to the table. The man has a truly singular eye where he can take something that is a little derivative of a lot of the tropes of the era and still make a film that's a blast to watch. Moments of this felt like a lost Final Destination film, but one directed with a clearler plan than most of that franchise tends to hit with. The deaths are fun, the mystery has a couple red herrings in it to make it more enjoyable, and the conclusion is suitably haunting for a cliffhanger where we pretend the two sequels don’t exist (I’ve never seen them, I’m just opposed in concept).

To be frank, my primary complaint about this is that it ends about 15 minutes or so later than it maybe should have. I loved the exorcism scene, and I loved the abandoned hospital sequence, I just wish our more drawn-out ending had played a little tighter. This is probably my most consistent issue with Miike’s work as a director. Across his filmography that I’ve seen to date, things run just a tad longer than I think the story calls for. Sometimes it just needed some trimming in the middle, and other times it legitimately just runs past the better conclusion, as is the case here. The exorcism is a wonderful mid film peak, followed by a pretty solid abandoned hospital. But after those are done we still have something in the ballpark of 15 minutes till the end of the film. Not necessarily a point against this one, but it feels like some information was intentionally ignored in favor of a plot twist at the end of the final act.

Miike has a reputation for having work that can be a little out there, but this film is a really straight forward run of the hits of the ’00s. If you’re afraid of him specifically, this is an incredibly safe entry point to his work. Additionally, if you enjoyed Phone, Ring, or the idea of the Final Destination films, you should have a good time here too. The crusty aesthetic of early ’00s J-horror is on full display here, with all the grey corpse hands and jerky wall walking you could ask for. Not a pillar of the genre, necessarily, but far from a waste of your time.