Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: The bodies begin to pile up after girls play a new dating simulator for their phones.
Review: Let me preface this by saying there are apparently four of these movies and they have many alternate titles as well. IMDb lists their chronological order as "Cellular Boyfriend," "Cellular Girlfriend," "Cellular Boyfriend+," and "Cellular Girlfriend+." I don't know if I'll ever get to watch the rest since this was just on youtube with barely intelligible subtitles. I really wanted to see "Cellular Girlfriend" with Airi Suzuki, but it doesn't have subtitles (womp womp). So anyway, you may be wondering, with a ridiculous title like that, is this a chick flick? Thankfully not, although, it does try to be a romance horror or a horror that emphasizes a cheesy romance. If anything, I would say this is the typical kind of J-horror we've come to expect in recent years: schoolgirls being picked off by a rumor that turns out to be true. Although I liked a lot of the basic principles, and there was a hint of originality, the film plays out in cookie-cutter fashion doing little to differentiate itself from the movies it's trying emulate.
The story focuses on Satomi and Yuka, best friends that end up playing this weird dating simulator/game we will simply refer to as cellular boyfriend; amusingly, the company that created the game is called "I-Scream." The way the game works is that you pick your ideal looking guy and start off with 50% romance points or whatever. Your goal is to flirt with or fall in love with your little boyfriend to get the points up or ignore him and lower the points. If the points hit 0 you die...if they hit 100% you die! Isn't that swell? Okay, they don't know that at first, but you get the gist of it. The other thing that happens is that you can pass your boyfriend on to another phone, but you can't take the same one back, have more than one at a time, or give it to a male. I'm no expert on teenage, Japanese girls' thoughts, but would a game like this really be popular to the point adults would play it too? Something that annoyed me early on was that the girls were getting so specific with the game yet they acknowledge the fact that they think it's automated responses; like one of their friends die and they're asking the game does it know what happened. Really, hun?! So after their friend does get killed, the girls begin to hear rumors that the game is like a standard J-horror curse, but they don't necessarily believe it until a second friend dies.
At this point, detectives become involved--and who's this delicate little beauty? Oh Mari Hoshino...what are you doing in this? Last we saw of you, you were dressed up as a boy in "Dead Ball." As you may have easily guessed, the boyfriends are the ones that are killing the girls and Satomi tries to explain this to the police, but they don't believe it. Even if you play the game normally, the boyfriends still will turn deadly no matter what, and Yuka becomes scared with her boyfriend losing points. Yuka wants to pass her boyfriend to Satomi, but she rejects this notion, however, Satomi does take the boyfriend from a different girl's phone once she sees that it looks like her lost love, Naoto. There is this whole back-story we get all movie long showing flashbacks to Satomi trying to woo this dude who she thinks was her first true love. This plot aspect comes off super corny, but I suppose it's standard fare for this type of film; get used to it too, because it comprises a good chunk of the movie. Apparently there was an incident regarding a group of rapists who were all burned alive along with their victim. Among the suspected rapists found dead was Naoto, but I don't think you need to be psychic to guess he wasn't one of them. Yuka and Satomi go to great lengths to rid Yuka of the boyfriend including trying to get a new phone and finally forcing it on to Satomi's bitchy boss. Hey, she's a bitch--she surely deserves death, right? Morality. Satomi learns her borderline milf mom was also playing the game but doesn't die. Despite all they've seen, including phantom boyfriends, they feel relieved that the deaths were just a coincidence and there is no curse...well, until they discover that bitchy boss did die. Totally didn't see that coming.
It would seem that only certain boyfriends are cursed as Ms. Hoshino decides to take the bitchy boss' boyfriend (alliteration!) after Satomi once again warns them that the game is responsible for the deaths. Only hours later, Ms. Hoshino manages to score 100% with the boyfriend. Oh, I bet you would know just what to say my dear! Unfortunately, this leads to an untimely death for Ms. Hoshino as she blows her own brains out. The remaining detective, now convinced of the curse's existence, realizes that the boyfriends match those of the bodies found in the rapist fire. The detective also comes the conclusion, which they should have easily figured out, that Naoto died trying to help the people get out of the fire since he worked in the building. Uhh, why didn't his employers disclose this fact?! So the reason why Satomi's mom lived was because she didn't have one of those guys and why you don't have like half of the Japanese female population dropping dead. Satomi and the detective go to break into the I-Scream building while Yuka, unaware of what is going on, is in the process of being killed by her boyfriend. For some contrived reason, the girl that gave Satomi the Naoto simulation pops up to conveniently take the detective out of commission supposedly at the behest of another boyfriend she chose to take on. After she is easily dispensed with, Satomi tries to destroy the servers at I-Scream, which, surprise surprise, are located directly above where the rapists were killed. Naoto explains that their spirits were transferred into the network after being killed and somehow he was caught up with them. Of course Satomi manages to delete the programs, destroy the boyfriends, save Yuka, and free Naoto and the ghost of the girl that was raped. Naoto bids his farewells and tells Satomi to move on. The movie then ends with Satomi and Yuka coming across a guy falling out a window who had a cellular girlfriend that looks just like the girl who attacked them at I-Scream. Oh no, sequel!
For the most part, this film is nothing new we haven't seen hundreds of times before and done better. You've got almost all the cliches except for a long-haired ghost girl. The romance plotline does feel cheesy, but I wasn't expecting anything less. Nevertheless, the movie was mostly entertaining and never tried to be more than it offered. Sure, it was predictable and lame, but it had enough original aspects to stand out and entertain in its own right. I don't imagine they had much of a budget, but things mostly looked good. The girls are cute enough with Ms. Hoshino balancing things out nicely. Overall, this is one of those movies that if you have your expectations in check you should be satisfied. On the other hand, this is just a slightly above average film mostly geared toward those who appreciate J-horror so be aware of that facet.
Notable Moment: When the one boyfriend is doing a stupid licking-lips gesture. This movie needed more creepy shit like that. I mean these boyfriends are supposed to be the ghosts of a gang of rapists after all.
Final Rating: 5.5/10
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