Hellphone

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with Sid Soupir admiring the girl of his dreams, Angie. His friend, Pierre (also called Tiger), encourages him to talk to her. Sid agrees but decides to impress Angie with his skateboarding moves first. At first he succeeds in getting Angie's attention, but then he crashes into a vegetable cart. Angie's two friends, Margot and Clemence, laugh while Angie pulls Sid to his feet. Sid offers to make plans with Angie as Angie's sort-of boyfriend, Virgile, and his friends watch from a distance. Angie agrees and offers to get Sid's cellphone number but Sid replies he does not have a cellphone at all. Tiger butts in, making up a lie that Sid had to cancel his cellphone plan because a crazy Russian ex-girlfriend was stalking him. Unimpressed, Angie's friends lead her away.
Back home, Sid asks his mother if he can have his birthday money in advance. She is only able to spare €30 and Sid resolves to ask money from his boss at the fast food restaurant he works at.
At his job, Sid asks his boss for his paycheck in advance but the boss refuses. Seeing as €30 will be the only money he is able to raise, Sid goes to a dinky shop run by Patrick Vo. After some haggling, Sid gets a cellphone, a sleek red phone with two protruding horns at the top. The phone comes to life in his hands, which astonishes the shopkeeper who has been trying to turn it on ever since he got it. He tries to take the phone back so he can sell it for more money, but Sid runs away.
At school, Sid shows off his phone to Tiger, who is amazed by it. Meanwhile, Clemence brags to her friends about her successful audition. Sid gathers up his courage to ask Angie for her number but Clemence and Margot laugh at his new cellphone and lead Angie away.
In science class, Sid and Pierre are teased by Virgile and his friends. As the lesson continues, the Hellphone dials Margot's number and tells her to set Clemence's hair on fire with the Bunsen burner (Clemence landed the role Margot auditioned for). Hypnotized, Margot obeys. She is sent to the principal's office where she tries to explain her actions. Unimpressed, the principal lets her go without a clear punishment.
After school, Sid and Tiger visit their favorite skate shop but are disappointed to find out the ownership has changed. They leave without buying anything and the next day, at home before school, Sid practices on what to say to Angie. To his embarrassment, the phone calls Angie. Sid manages to small talk with her and when he hangs up, he is surprised to see Margot on his recently made calls list.
In math class, Margot texts Clemence her apologies but Clemence refuses to forgive her. During the teacher's lecture, Sid fills in Tiger on his phone's weird doings. Annoyed with their talking, the Mr. Mazeau, the teacher, flicks a piece of chalk at Sid's head and demands for him to answer a particularly difficult question. Sid looks at his phone helplessly and to his amazement, the phone provides the correct answer. However, the teacher believes Sid cheated with his cellphone's calculator and confiscates it, throwing it out of the classroom window.
As soon as class lets out, Sid and Tiger rescue the phone, relieved it isn't damaged. As they ponder how the phone knew the correct answer, Sid and Pierre see Angie and her friends being walked to their next class by Virgile and his entourage.
Later that night, Mr. Mazeau is working in his classroom when he receives a mysterious phone call. We then cut to Sid waking up on his birthday and the phone wishes him a happy birthday in the form of a hologram. Sid goes to pick up Pierre for school and tells him about it. Pierre get worried and insists that Sid throw away the phone but Sid refuses. Pierre takes the phone and asks it for help in getting rid of their detention. It calls the school secretary who believes that Sid and Pierre are, in fact, the principal. They take advantage and not only get rid of their detention, but install the McDonald's menu for their school lunch. With the phone, the boys go on a spree. Meanwhile, at school, the school janitor finds Mr. Mazeau on the ground, with his mouth stuffed with pieces of chalk.
At a strip club, Tiger asks to borrow the phone so he can get his divorced parents back together. Sid refuses, believing that the phone chose him for a reason. However, he relents but the phone refuses to work for Tiger, causing him to comment that the phone appears to be in love with Sid.
In the end, our three protagonists (Sid, Angie, and Pierre) manage to freeze the phone, and throw it overboard on a ship as Sid and Angie kiss.

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
It's a lot of fun (...but just don't expect it to be scary). Hellphone is the story of a boy who , not really knowing it , buy an evil phone who has a mind of its own to get the girl of his dream. It's a crazy film from beginning to the end , it goes at a crazy speed both in the writing and the direction, the camera keep zooming in,zooming out,the color are bright and the actor all have very high energy. There's a lot of dark comedy in there too (There's a scene were a fast food owner deep fried his own head)and plenty of laugh. Jean Baptiste Maunier had become very popular in France since "les choriste" and even if I must say that I don't consider myself a fan of him , I really did find him convincing in the role of a metal-head kid. But in my opinion the real star of the film is Vladimir Consigny who plays Virgile , the self obsessed bad guy in the story,he bring a lot of fun to the role ( and I'm not talking about the strip tease scene ) he's just a really different sort of villain. The last 15 minutes of the film are the best for both fans of horror and comedy. It's a really hard film to describe but if any of you saw film like "Idyle hands" or "Shawn of the dead" I am sure you will have a fun time watching this silly horror/comedy.. Very entertaining and a lot of fun. Hellphone came as a surprise to me. I rented it believing to get a standard horror/teen b-movie. Instead I got a clever made comedy with brilliant dialogs and perfect actors. The script is very well written and the director did a good job, since he managed to make even simple scenes interesting to watch. I had the feeling that the whole cast and crew really enjoyed their work and I for myself never enjoyed a movie that much since "Interstate 60".Hellphone is full of dark humor, even the "brutal" killings makes you smile. Another plus are a lot of references to other movies ("The Birds", "Vertigo", "Christine", "Gremlins", ...). The supporting actors are well chosen. Each of them reminds you of typical cartoon characters. All of them add well to the story.It's a joyride for everyone who likes entertaining but not too heavy stuff. Something you can watch over and over again.