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While
embarking on a field trip to South Korea,
a Japanese class gets an unpleasant surprise - the
girl they used to bully is out for revenge. The teens
soon start receiving morbid messages on their cell
phones, and unless they forward it to someone else,
they will die a horrible death. Soon all hell breaks
loose as the chain letters turn everyone against
each other - your best friend may have just become
your worst enemy...
The third and, according to the title, final movie
in the successful horror franchise "One Missed Call"
is here. And thank god they're putting an end to this
one since I didn't even find the first one very good.
Though, as we've experienced before, just because you
put "Final" in the title, it doesn't necessarily mean
that it WILL be the final movie in the franchise. Before
you know it, we'll probably be seeing "One Missed Call:
A New Beginning" on the DVD shelves. Anyway, let's try
to keep our focus on this one for now, shall we?
One Missed Call: Final is nothing like the previous
two movies. In this one they've brought a Battle Royale
twist into the movie as a group of students on a field
trip in South Korea start to receive morbid text
messages predicting their deaths. The one sending out
these messages is a girl who used to be bullied by
her class mates, and who's decided to take revenge.
Panic breaks out among the students and it doesn't
take long before no one can be trusted.
Heading into this, I was a bit sceptical as I hated the
previous sequel, but I was actually quite pleasantly
surprised. While naturally not flawless, this was still
superior to the previous two movies in the franchise.
The story felt refreshing enough and it doesn't try
very hard to copy "Battle Royale" - in fact, I'm not
even sure that movie was an inspiration. Sure, there
are some similar elements, but believe you me, they
are two very different movies. While Battle Royale is
a serious action/horror movie (just so that you know,
Battle Royale is one of my all-time favourite movies),
One Missed Call: Final is a pure popcorn flick.
The movie doesn't bother to introduce all the characters
and heads straight into horror territory, entertaining
its audience from the first frame. At first, you're not
even sure that it's going to be a ghost flick since it
plays more like a slasher than anything else, but as
the story unfolds, we're eventually (and unfortunately
I might add) introduced to the classic ghost girl once
again - and this is where things start to go wrong.
Just like in the previous two movies, the ending makes
little to no sense, and instead of trying to come up
with something new, we're pretty much treated with the
same old ending that we're so used to seeing from
Asian ghost movies these days. Luckily, the ghost girl
doesn't show up until quite far into the movie, so we
still have about an hour of great entertainment.
The overall score is 3/5, just because of the mediocre
last forty minutes, but I can still warmly recommend
this horror flick as it's a vast improvement on the
previous two movies. A small part of me is actually
hoping that we get to see another missed call movie,
but on the other hand, it's probably better if we don't.
Either way, if you're a fan of the franchise, you will
definitely not be disappointed.
Body parts get broken in various ways, nothing very gory.
Naturally they've kept the original ring-tone theme
melody and it works just as well as it did before.
Surprisingly entertaining sequel which is a great way
to end a mediocre horror franchise. Had they only
stuck to the story that we got in the first hour, this
could very well have been a 4/5, but since they had to
bring back the ghost girl and throw some ludicrous
twists at us, I have to give it 3/5. Still, undoubtedly
the best movie in the franchise so check it out.
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