Some time ago, the Korean thriller film "The Call" (콜) was launched on the US streaming platform Netflix. The film is a remake of the 2011 British low-budget horror film "The Caller" (The Caller). The protagonist moved into a house and received an unfamiliar phone call from the past; the word-of-mouth response of "Phone" was good after its launch, with an IMDb score of 7.1 and a Rotten Tomatoes index of 100%, which was 6.1 higher than the IMDb 6.1 of the original "Call from Time". 20% is obviously much better. For Li Congxian, the director of "Phone", it is already a great encouragement for his debut to achieve such results.
It is not uncommon for the past and the present to intersect and influence each other, such as Denzel Washington racing against the past in Deja Vu, time is a circle in Predestination, etc. Etc.; the script of "Call From Time" can't be called great. Compared with other hard sci-fi movies that explore time, "Call From Time" is more like a low-cost horror theme with the help of sci-fi background settings; and Whether it's the style of the film or the movement of the camera, it all says it all.
The film tells the story of a woman in the middle of a divorce who moves into a cheap, unfamiliar apartment and is drawn into a bloodbath by a strange call from the past; in this regard, The Phone It also roughly inherits most of the settings of "Call from Time and Space", but removes the setting that the heroine is deeply oppressed by her sadistic ex-husband, adds a lot of family scenes, and most importantly, the two movies are the most distinct The difference is that it adopts the setting of two female protagonists to concretize the characters on the other end of the phone to construct two complete main lines.
Simply put, "Call From Time" is like a horror movie, in which the audience is integrated into the story as the heroine, chased and killed by an unseen crazy woman from the past; and "Phone" is like a story. A thriller movie where audiences wander between two timelines and gain insight into how the two characters go from knowing each other to killing each other.
Looking at it now, "Call From Time" uses the unknownness of the phone to conceive a complete concept, that is, before there is no smartphone, you never know who is on the other side when the phone rings; at the same time, it also uses time. The unidirectionality of 's throws up an interesting proposition, how do you kill someone stuck in the past? Obviously, the suspense and terrifying atmosphere of "Call From Time" are well done, and the setting of the characters also adds a blurred element to the film; "Telephone" focuses more on the elaboration of the story itself and the shaping and interaction of the two main characters , which also made the viewers who were horrified by the dark old house after watching "Call from Time and Space", but were afraid of Jong-seo Jeon's face after watching "The Phone".
As for the ending, "Call From Time" does not use too many ending stamina commonly used in horror films, but tells a story that has no suspense at the end in the climax part; as for the ending of "Telephone" itself, The audience's evaluation is polarized. Director Li Congxian provided two endings, including the orthodox ending and the open ending. The purpose is to continue to spread the past and the present, and the infinite possibilities of human influence are actually very important to the orthodox ending. On the contrary, it seems superfluous; considering that "Telephone" is Li Congxian's debut, it is not difficult to imagine why the film has an open ending at the end.
Although "Call From Time" is not a thick ink in the history of science fiction or horror movies, it is largely just an inspirational script written by screenwriter Sergio Casci to serve the horror. The concept of the film; and when Li Congxian was in the hands, "Telephone" included religious suspense and added Quan Zhongrui's scene, greatly changed the side point of the story to achieve a better viewing effect, although the quality is not very high Good, but also remarkable; at least between science fiction and horror, "The Phone" has found the perfect balance.
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