Phone, aka Pon (2002)

This effective ghost story from South Korea approaches overkill but doesn’t go over the line. It also presents one of the best creep-out performances from a child, ever.  

Ji-won (Ji-won Ha) is a reporter who has just completed a series of articles about a ring of pedophiles. A man who is outraged by the stories (we assume because he’s close to, if not a member of, the ring) keeps bombarding her with threatening phone calls. Her best friend Ho-jeong (Yu-mi Kim) invites her to move temporarily into the new house Ho-j has just finished decorating and in which she and her husband Chang-hoon (Woo-jae Choi) will soon take up residence. Ji-w accepts, hoping to hide from her tormentor. 

But after the move, something odd happens. Ho-j’s young daughter Yeong-ju (Seo-woo Eun) answers a call on “Aunt Ji-won’s” mobile phone. Whatever she hears shapes her face into a mask of terror and she begins screaming.  After that, she fluctuates between happy little Yeong-ju and something else, something that develops a creepy, sexually charged affection for her father and bitter jealousy for her mother. Note here that the Yeong-ju can’t be more than six years old. 

As the air grows thicker and the story moves toward its grotesque finale, we learn that Ji-won’s mobile phone as been assigned a number that was given previously to a couple of people who died violently. There seems to be something in the number 6644. There are the ghost of the teen Jin-hie (Ji-yeon Choi), a girl who seeks vengeance because of a sordid, failed love affair; lots of rainy nights, and enough sudden apparitions to satisfy the most fervent lover of K-horror. The scene when Jin-hie succeeds in possessing Yeong-ju is terrifying not only within the context of the story but also because of the intensity of young Seo-woo Eun. You won’t believe what you’re seeing. 

The film was written and directed by Byeong-ki Ahn, and it is a masterful piece of work. If you’re not already familiar with the South Korean horror renaissance of the 1990s-early 2000s, this is a good place to start getting acquainted.