One Missed Call - Review

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Rated: PG-13

Distributor: Warner Brothers

Release Date: 2008-01-04

Starring: Ed Burns, Shannyn Sossamon, Ana Claudia Talancon, Ray Wise, Azura Skye, Johnny Lewis, Jason Beghe, Margaret Cho

Directed by Eric Valette

Produced by Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove, Scott Kroopf, Jennie Lew

Written by Andrew Klavan

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Reviewed by Josh Tyler : 2008-01-04 17:14:47

One Missed Call, as you might have guessed, is yet another remake of a Japanese horror film about ghosts who make murder appointments using modern technology. Apparently in addition to fearing Godzilla, Tokyo denizens have real issues with anything that’s powered by electricity. Next up for American remaking: a movie about a ghost who kills people with electric blankets. Meanwhile, I staunchly refuse to be afraid of my cell phone, or at least if I’m going to be afraid of it, I need better reasons than the ones given in this script, adapted by Andrew Klavan.

It stars Shannyn Sossamon and Ed Burns as two people with no personality inexplicably involved in some sort of curse which has nothing to do with them . Shannyn plays Beth Raymond, a college co-ed who dresses in clothes stolen out of her grandmother’s closet, and whose friends are mysteriously dying. Before their death, each of them receives a phone call, from themselves, and they hear themselves die. The time of the call predicts their death, and so while they wait for the ghost to show up and kill them, they all hallucinate creepy crawlies. It’s not long before Beth gets such a call, and so she enlists the help of an easily convinced police detective named Jack, played by Ed Burns, to keep her from ending up in the morgue.

The script is terrible and the characters within it barely more than cardboard cutouts waiting to be killed. The curse, is ridiculous and never actually makes any sense, even at the end, when it’s explained to us. There’s no real reason for what’s happening, even though the movie spends most of its running time trying to find one. The answer it does come up with, simply doesn’t fit. As for being scary, forget it. The closest thing One Missed Call had to offer are cheap camera tricks. For instance, the moment in the film that seemed to get the biggest reaction out of the audience I saw it with, has Sossamon reacting to a noise, jumping, and turning to reveal Ed Burns calmly standing behind her depressing an inhaler… for no particular reason. If that’s your kind of horror movie, then One Missed Call might be for you.

My personal theory here is that this is a movie primarily constructed to sell ringtones. The ghost uses a signature ring to call people, and assuming anyone liked this piece of shit, I’m sure whichever corporate conglomerate it was that had hand in making this thing will make a mint off of selling it for suckers to put on their Nokia. I hope everyone who sees this movie runs right out and buys it, so I’ll know who to avoid engaging in conversation. I have an excuse. I had to see it. You on the other hand chose to see it, and then went home to download a crummy overpriced ringtone so you could remember all the fun you had seeing it. Not only did you choose to see an obviously awful movie, you enjoyed it. Whoever you are, I’m not talking to you.

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