Merî-san no denwa

There are so many horror movies based on urban legends that we are running out of urban legends. Mary's Phone scraped the bottom of the barrel and found one of the least interesting ones.

We follow Minako and her friends in the karate club when they go to a training camp in the countryside. The karate is one of the appealing aspects of the movie, since we get to see the group doing karate exercises together. Unfortunately, they never use any karate in the action scenes, which is a waste of potential. The martial art just becomes an unused Chekov's gun.

Another appealing aspect should be the nature surrounding the hostel. They even take a run in the forest. Unfortunately, this possibility is not exploited fully. The garden and forest looks nice but bland, and there are only a few short shots of the surrounding mountains.

The plot is simple and mostly logical. It was a pleasant surprise to see that it deviated from the urban legend. Still, there is nothing new or unique.

The action scenes are low-budget and basic. The best thing to say is that they could have been worse. It was an intelligent choice to make them short and film them in darkness.

One of the best things about the movie really is that it is only just above 60 minutes long. I mean this seriously, because it was a good way of avoiding it becoming boring.

At least there is a nostalgic sense of adventure in going to a camp, and some coziness in the idea of breaking the rules to hang out with friends in the night.