Rating of
2/4
One Missed Call should be One Missed Movie
goodfellamike - wrote on 10/26/08
I believe there is an unwritten rule in Hollywood, that when an original idea for a horror film is thought-up, it is immediately quashed by the brass and replaced with another Japanese remake thought. This must be the reason we have seen nothing new or creative since the days of George A. Romero and Stuart Gordon, but instead are subjected to Americanized rehashings of Ringu, The Grudge, (the forthcoming The Eye) and the latest, One Missed Call, Takashe Miike’s child-ghost screamie about phone calls from the dead.
Young student Beth (Shannyn Sossamon) has found herself amidst an eerie sequence of events: she is a first-hand witness to the deaths of most of her friends, is always present for their last-minute confessions and is being haunted by childhood memories of her own abuse. Before each of her friends kick the bucket, they receive a phone message (accompanied by a creepy ringtone) from the future. This message contains their final words in their own voice and usually a bloodcurdling scream – two days later, the message becomes reality and they’re dead. The only person that seems to believe Beth is Detective Jack Andrews (Ed Burns), because his sister seems to have died just as mysteriously. There’s not much these characters can do other than check phone records, smash their phones and search an old hospital that suffered a blaze a short time before once Beth receives her own death message. Nothing much is made of a television show that believes the current deaths are caused by Satan and promises to exorcise the demons from one of the characters. We meet Ted Summers (Ray Wise) who has invited Beth’s friend, Taylor (Ana Claudia Talancon) to be saved on his program. Once the scene is over, we never hear about it again. It just goes back to boring investigations and taking apart cell phones (which never helps).
One Missed Call has its share of scary moments, but one can’t help feeling like we’ve been-there-done-that throughout. There are endless shots of shadowy figures fleeting back and forth past the camera, hands reaching out from the darkness and bodies twitching ominously with grotesque expressions on their faces before they disappear. If there’s one portion that stands out, it’s the scene where a baby is holding onto a cell phone, but when one thinks about it, it doesn’t make any sense and is only in the film to be just that: a memorably scary image, just like the ominous ghost figures that populate the final moments of a characters life.
There is nothing particularly interesting to speak about the acting in One Missed Call. Sossamon and Burns provide workable performances, and it’s really quite a shame what happens to one of their characters in the end, but in a horror film, it’s hard to build much sympathy and when the lights turn on, all we can really think about is “I got exactly what I expected with this movie, because I didn’t expect much anyway!” Final Grade: C-
