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Review | Haunting Call movie review: Lin Min-chen sees ghosts in Danny Pang’s uneven horror
A live streamer steals a mobile phone that serves as an instrument of revenge for a ghost she befriends. Intriguing, but don’t expect scares
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2/5 stars
A mobile phone belonging to a bullying victim who has killed herself and come back as a vengeful ghost is at the heart of Haunting Call, which marks a rare return to Hong Kong filmmaking for Danny Pang Fat (Death Stranding) after he spent most of the past decade working in mainland China.
An intermittently diverting horror that boasts a couple of interesting ideas, very clumsily thrown together, this low-budget film scripted and directed by Pang should be of cursory interest to those who liked The Eye and its sequels – which put Pang and his brother, Oxide Pang Chun, on the map – even if it isn’t very scary at all.
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Similar to stories in that series, Haunting Call follows a young woman who starts to see ghosts. Unlike The Eye, however, Pang’s new film is so enamoured with its other themes – schoolyard bullying, revenge and female friendship – that it somehow forgets to make it unnerving for his protagonist.
Malaysian actress Lin Min-chen, fresh off the success of Table for Six and its sequel, plays Lily, a frustrated live streamer who discovers that her boyfriend has been sleeping with her best friend. Her fortune changes when she inexplicably steals a parcel from her neighbour, and it happens to contain the cursed phone.
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