ONE MISSED CALL 2 (2005)

More missed calls. More people die. The End.

It was torture getting through this story. The first film was about a pissed off woman who died in a fire or something, I'm not even sure. Now the second film is about a pissed off little girl who died over a hundred years ago when the local villagers cut out her tongue, sewed her mouth shut and threw her in a mine...I think. Honestly by the last act of the movie I was in such a daze I could barely even remember my name.

Zero gore, zero tits, zero blood, zero scares, confusing as fuck story with a weak ass kid ghost. The only highlight (and it wasn't much of a highlight) was the appearance of that one chick who had a brief role in DEATH NOTE.

Skip this stinker with a vengeance.

Part 1 - One Missed Call (2003)
Part 3 - One Missed Call 3: Final (2006)
Remake - One Missed Call (2008)

I've seen this shot before somewhere...actually that's not true since that film was made a year later.

ONE MISSED CALL (2003)

A young woman receives a mysterious voicemail from herself two days in the future. Two days later (at the exact moment of the voicemail timestamp) she finds herself unexpectedly saying the same shit she said on the voicemail...right before getting tossed in front of a train by a ghost. So now, one-by-one all of the people on her quick dial start getting phone calls and then dying in boring ways two days later. Yawn.

As you can probably tell by now I'm not really the biggest fan of ghost movies, mainly because I don't finds ghosts scary, but at the same time, I kinda like ghost horror movies because of the variety of the stories and there's really no set rules. So with that in mind, I was very excited to watch a ghost movie directed by the great Takashi Miike especially the Takashi Miike from 2003 because that's the same year me made GOZU which might be Miike's finest moment.. Well, I think he probably blew his creative wad on GOZU, because ONE MISSED CALL is lame as fook! The ghost isn't scary and the movie depends too much on jump scenes.  Also, the story is so confusing.  I pretty much tuned out after Kazue Fukiishi died. She was, by far, the most talented actress in the movie, so I'm not sure why she wasn't the main character.

Another thing that irritated me is after Kazue was violently mutilated and beheaded by the ghost on live television(!!!),  the ghost calls the next girl (still on live television!!!) and she just walks off! Something like that would have been the biggest news story since the moon landing and yet this woman is allowed to wanted off and start exploring an old abandoned hospital by herself?! That's even more unrealistic than the idea of the ghost haunting a phone because you know there would be a hundred television crews following her day and night for the next 48 hours.

Not worth watch. Interesting idea, but the story is too confusing and the payoff nonexistent. Skip it.

Part 2 - One Missed Call 2 (2005)
Part 3 - One Missed Call 3: Final (2006)
Remake - One Missed Call (2008)

Crew members hand visible.

SPANKING LOVE (1995)

I watched this years ago and I guess I'm a masochist myself cause here I am watching it again and you know what? I actually liked it alright this time around. It's still too long, there's not enough nudity and the story is kind silly, but it was entertaining in a late night cable softcore S&M kind of way.

A director of adult films is scheduled to make a whipping video, but at the last moment his female talent bails so now he desperately goes out on the street and asks a passing girl if she'd be in the video. She agrees and when the video catches the eye of a local masochist rich dude (played by Renji Ishibashi) he will stop at nothing to get her to perform at his club because he can see in her eyes that she is a "true sadist"...or something like that. It's all too confusing for it's own good. I seriously doubt anybody who rents something called SPANKING LOVE is looking for a story. They're probably looking for some kinky spanking shit to go down. Well, they're going to be disappointed cause despite the subject matter there's only a limited amount of nudity and none of the S&M shit is erotic at all. The main scene at the beginning actually had me giggling cause the dude doing the whipping gets so fucking wound up he actually misses the girl a lot and ends up just beating the crap out of an old mattress!

The main satisfaction I got out of the movie was watching Renji Ishibashi completely throw himself into the role including multiple shoe licking scenes and even making out with another dude!!! That turned my stomach a little seeing he tongue zipping in and out of the other dudes mouth but whatever.

Good for a laugh, but not a jack. Watch THE JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR instead.

Renji Ishibashi kissing another dude!!!

PYROKINESIS (2000)

[Update 02/07/2021: Really need to rewatch and fix this review.]

PYROKINESIS is the story of a woman, Junko, who has the power to burn things up just by thinking it. She's pretty good at controlling it, but it leads to a lonely life.  At a work party she starts talking to a handsome dude and even befriends his little sister. Later that night, after the party, the sister is kidnapped and tortured to death by a sadistic gang that likes to make snuff movies for money. Using her powers, Junko sets out to find the gang of assholes and kill them. While searching she finds out she's not the only one with psychic powers.

Overall, it's a good movie that starts out strong, but suffers from a needlessly convoluted plot, not enough entertainment to fill the entire 115-minute runtime and a story that was too melodramatic. I was impressed by the female detective, played by Kaori Momoi, she did a great job in what would have otherwise been a boring role.

Worth watching.

20TH CENTURY BOYS 1: BEGINNING OF THE END (2008)

Hmmm. Well, based on that wacky font and crazy looking guy on the DVD cover and knowing that this was based on a manga I was expecting this to be some exciting over the top shit, instead it was pretty slow with a shitload of talking. Maybe Part 2 (if I ever dig up the desire to watch it) will be better.

Kenji works at a convenience store and leads a pretty empty life until he and a few of his childhood friends start to notice that the bad terrorist shit that's happening recently around the world is exactly like a "Book of Prophecy" that they wrote when they were in elementary school. The police are in league with the cult that's carrying out the attacks so it's up to them to save the world. That's an awesome idea for a movie, but I really disliked the overly complicated way the story is told. Also the entire thing looked low budget like a made-for-TV movie.

Worth watching, I guess, but it disappointed me and really doubt I'll ever care enough to watch the next two installments.

There was one great scene: the finger snap scene. I have absolutely zero idea what was going on, but it was fucking fantastic! Reminded me of some of the best moments of David Lynch.

Part 2 - 20th Century Boys 2: The Last Hope (2009)
Part 3 - 20th Century Boys 3: Redemption (2009)