8. Phone
Year: 2002
Country: South Korea
Director: Byeong-Ki Ahn Not to be confused with the Japanese One Missed Call franchise (which did spawn an American version), Phone is Byeong-Ki Ahn's better-crafted followup effort to Gawi. Like that film, this one takes a central element from a well-known American horror film (in this case, the possessed little girl from The Exorcist) and merges it with traditional Asian ghost story tropes to create a surprisingly effective synthesis. Investigative journalist Ji-Won is trying to escape a stalker connected with a pedophilia case she uncovered, so she moves into a rich friend's uninhabited house and changes her phone number. But she starts to experience odd visions in the house and get strange calls on the phone. When her friend's daughter, Young-Ju, answers Ji-Won's phone, she becomes possessed. Meanwhile, Ji-Won discovers the last few people who had her phone number all died mysteriously. She attempts to get to the bottom of the cursed phone number's mystery in order to save herself and Young-Ju. Much of Phone is a standard-issue Ring emulation, but it's very stylish and well made, making particularly good use of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The real standout, though, is little Seo-Woo Eun's performance as the possessed girl Young-Ju. She's frightening and intense, giving Linda Blair a real run for her money. An American Phone remake directed by Byeong-Ki Ahn himself was announced in 2004, and continuously delayed until settling on an early 2010 shooting date. We're now three years past the proposed shooting date with no new information - a sure sign the project's been condemned to development hell or quietly abandoned.