Korean director Byoung-ki Ahn takes technophobia to horrifying levels in Phone, centring on a journalist played by Ji-won Ha who's haunted by a dodgy line connection. (Well, you know how that can go.) Meanwhile pint-sized actress Seo-woo Eun puts the Omen's Damien to shame with her demonic tantrums. Although none of it makes sense, the film is "soaked in menace" and will surely satisfy fans of the genre.

Voicemail

In a batch of cursory interviews with cast and crew, director Byoung-ki Ahn cites influences from Alfred Hitchock's Psycho to Hideo Nakata's Ringu and explains that the mobile phone is an attractive medium for horror because "they are so prevalent in our society". He also talks briefly about his upcoming projects, which couldn't be more different than Phone. The first is a thriller in the vein of Vanilla Sky while the other is a "kung-fu comedy". Don't expect any incisive observations from the actors though, especially from Ji-Won Ha who states, "I realised I had to express fear with my face which was hard to do." Yes, it's called acting, dear.

At 44 minutes the Making Of documentary is unusually long, but a fly-on-the-wall approach means it lacks focus. You'll watch multiple takes of the same scene as Ahn tries desperately to get it right, giving intricate direction to the actors like, "Slap him harder, okay?" A shorter behind-the-scenes featurette captures the action between takes and focuses mainly on child actress Seo-woo Eun who, incidentally, turns out to be just as scary off-screen. On top of being a mean martial arts expert she also raps like Eminem.

Production Notes offers more behind-the-scenes tidbits, this time focusing on makeup preparations for scenes of general mutilation - which is great, if you like that sort of thing.

Off The Hook

Little Eun takes centre stage again for ten minutes of "scene-specific" commentary where she dispenses such pearls of wisdom as, "The director was very nice, but Yu-Mi was the nicest." Needless to say, this has little to do with what's going on onscreen and given that Eun is barely old enough to walk, it's rather worrying that she's allowed to watch the film at all. Besides that, it's obviously just a cute consolation prize for the absence of a director's commentary.

Overall, Phone offers more than the usual trimmings for a foreign DVD release, but you mightn't be calling your friends to tell them about it.

EXTRA FEATURES