Credentials: 0%, Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com) / 3.7
out of 10 (Imdb.com) / 24 out of 100 (Metacritic.com)
Plot: Things go south for Beth (Shannyn
Sossamon) and her group of attractive twenty-something friends when they begin receiving
mysterious messages on their cell phones. Mysterious how? Well, it seems the
calls are coming from the future and include the exact time said person will
die. What’s up with that? Is it some kind of ghostly curse at work? Or is it something…
else? Ahh who am I kidding? “One Missed Call” is based off a Japanese film so of
course it’s a ghostly curse at work. Japan loves it some ghostly curses. Either
way, one-time Teen Choice Award nominee Eddie Burns is out to crack the case
once and for all.
Why it stinks: “One Missed Call” is a remake of the Japanese
hit “Chakushin
Ari.” However, if you’ve seen fellow Asian exports “The Ring,” “The
Grudge,” and “Pulse” then you’ve seen “One Missed Call.”
Essentially it just cherry picks plot
devices from those movies, nabbing the phone gimmick from “The Ring,” the
vengeful spirits of “The Grudge” and adding in a dash of technology-age
paranoia from “Pulse.”
Thusly, it all feels very been-there-done-that. Every
twist is plainly telegraphed and should be easy to spot from miles away by even
the most fresh-faced horror newbie.
So, in lieu of suspense, “One Missed Call” sticks
to cheap musical stings and lots of sudden loud noises to scare its audience. Considering
how much it already “borrowed” from “The Ring,” it kind of makes you wish “One
Missed Call” had picked up some tips on how to properly execute ticking-clock
tension.
The script by
Andrew Klaven is jam-packed with some truly impressive plot holes. For example:
I’m not really sure how the cell phone curse works exactly. Or how it started. Or why the
ending is supposed to make sense. Or why one ghost is so interested in
protecting our heroine. There are a few others, but there's only so much space on the Internet.
For some reason (I
suspect to pad the movie’s 87 minute run time), Klaven gives Beth a truly ludicrous
backstory involving an abusive mother and a crippling fear of peepholes. It
doesn’t fit into the movie at all and creates a handful of agonizingly long
scenes where Beth trembles in fear at the sight of a closed door.
The special
effects are clumsy at best, the acting is only marginally less dynamic than a
rice cake, the final act is way too drawn out and the ending is infuriatingly
stupid. “One Missed Call” isn’t even fun to make fun of. The best thing that can be said about it, is that it's only 87 minutes long.
Quick hits
---The cell phone
body count in this movie is through the roof. Somewhere the “Can you hear me
now?” guy and the chick in the pink dress are holding each other and weeping.
---- Honestly, I don’t understand why the
characters insist on repeatedly breaking their cell phones. They’ve seen over
and over again that it doesn’t keep the ghost away, so why keep doing it?
---Who lets their kids keep pet centipedes? I
mean other than the mom of the nutty guy from “Human Centipede 2?”
---Of course she’s evil! She’s wearing a
black hoodie. It’s all so clear to me now.
Worst of the
worst: Without a doubt, the worst scene in “One Missed Call” is the cell phone
exorcism. That’s right, a priest is bought in to expel demons from a flip
phone. Someone actually speaks the line: “I command you to be gone from this
cell phone!” You can’t make this up. I mean, you can and someone did, but you
probably shouldn’t.
This is one call,
you should probably… miss. HAHA! See what I did there? Now THAT’S comedy. Bumblebee tuna.
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