I honestly think that the idea for this movie is great, I really do! But in my lowly and wretched opinion, if you are going to build to the kind of intense climax that this movie does, I truly feel that you really need to pick up the pace considerably.

I DO like the way the story starts, almost whimsically in the office, even with kind of a jaunty soundtrack, showing us the inner office goings on to set the scene for what is going to happen. I think that is just fine. But, for what ultimately turns out to be a fairly straight forward Slasher type film, 2 hours I feel just really kills the pacing. Now, if the filmmakers had all kinds of really creative twists and turns plot wise to keep us really engaged, then sure, a longer runtime is perfectly fine. But, really what we are talking about here, although cleverly done overall, are simply STYLISTIC choices that honestly drag out the film way longer than it should be, and I think it kills a lot of the momentum. If you trimmed out about 20 minutes or so and tightened up the pacing, I think that would REALLY keep the audience much more engaged and swept along by the action.

So, I do really like the film and it's very clever premise, I just genuinely feel that instead of drawing out all these audio/visual little touches over and over, it would have been FAR more effective and packed a lot more of a punch if they had taken out a lot of that redundancy and just kept the excitement level higher building to what likely would have been a more heightened, effective ending.

An insurance salesman turns his life into a hellish nightmare by answering a phone call.

I must admit this was the first "horror" movie I saw in a theater, and I was on the edge of my seat--that is until I just couldn't help laughing any longer. This isn't one of those movies where you throw your bag of pop-corn at the character on-screen who just decides to go check out what that screaking noise could possibly have been. You just laugh at the guy and his contorted expression, and when he decides to hang around longer in the killer's house while scaring himself silly--you just have to laugh at him!

Whether intended or not, this effect made the movie a very enjoyable experience, and the movie also has one of the best *SPOILER* make-out-scene-editing that I have ever seen--no nudity.

Enjoyable fare from 1999! Before the Asian Horror boom hit internationally, this adaptation of a best-selling book was made (and remade 8 years later in South Korea). To me, this film is something of a collusion between a Noir thriller and a Horror film. The languid pacing, nebbish investigator, slow unraveling of clues, and cat and mouse between the principal characters, all originate with Noir. But the body horror, psychological analysis, stalking of the protagonist, and color themes (green then yellow then red) come from Horror. However, if I were to leave out the humor, it would be a complete misrepresentation. The Japanese often love to include black humor in their twisted tales, and this film is a prime example. In trying to keep this review spoiler free, I won't include the long list of goofy moments, but it's all plain to see. This plays into the illogical motives of the characters at times which keeps this from being a deadly serious tale. On the critical side, I will say that it doesn't match later efforts in Asian Horror cinema, in respect to taut, action packed storylines; but I appreciated it's place in the history of that genre. When the confrontation about 90 mins in was put off; I must admit I was mildly frustrated. But the final 20 mins(!) ended up being a solid climax, and I then saw some logic in frustrating the viewer just to amp up their desire for resolution. Overall fun but not genre defining. Rather, a piece of the puzzle that lead to something much greater later on.