When Time Travel Turns into a Nightmare - The Call (2020)
A woman in the present answers a phone call from a stranger — who turns out to be living in the same house, 20 years earlier. As their connection deepens, a terrifying chain of consequences is set in motion across time.
This was such a tense, gripping, beautifully made film. I couldn’t look away, from the first unsettling phone call to the final frame.
The concept is brilliant: two women living in the same house, twenty years apart, connecting through a mysterious landline. What begins as a surreal curiosity quickly spirals into a psychological nightmare. The way The Call blends time travel and thriller is sharp, stylish, and genuinely haunting. Time travel plots are usually full of narrative traps, but this one stays tight and coherent, managing the butterfly effect with real precision.
Visually, it’s stunning. The cinematography is saturated and cold, perfectly calibrated to create unease. The transitions between past and present are seamless. The tension builds slowly, and then explodes. You’re never quite sure what to expect next.
The performances are incredible. Jeon Jong-seo (Seo-yeon) is magnetic. Watching her shift, from vulnerability to rage to something criminal is terrifying but also deeply human. I empathised a lot with her character at first, especially during the scenes of emotional abuse. Her unraveling made sense to me, and that made it even scarier. Park Shin-hye is more subtle, more contained, which works well as a contrast, even if I felt slightly less emotionally connected to her arc.
My only real complaint (and it’s not a minor one) is how the film reinforces stereotypes about mental illness. This trope in horror/thriller, where people with personality disorders or psychological trauma become criminals or possessed is sadly common and extremely damaging in real life. In many countries, people with mental health conditions are still beaten, locked up, or killed under the belief that they’re possessed. I wish the film had at least acknowledged that Seo-yeon became what she did because of years of isolation, abuse, and abandonment — not because she was “crazy" or had an ill fate from the beginning.
That said, as a thriller, The Call is wildly effective. It’s brutal, elegant, and unforgettable. I just wish its emotional violence hadn’t echoed real-world harm.
