One Missed Call

[Ryan]

One Missed Call as you might have guessed, is just another remake of a Japanese horror film (like The Grudge) about ghosts who make murder appointments using modern technology. Next up for American remaking: a movie about a ghost who kills people with electric blankets. Meanwhile, I still 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 movie.

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 some weird shit. 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 this lame movie had to offer are cheap camera tricks, and the scene with the pool at the beginning. For instance, the moment in the film that seemed to get the biggest reaction out of the audience I saw it with, has Beth reacting to a noise, jumping, and turning to reveal Ed Burns calmly standing behind her depressing an inhaler… for no particular reason. And if this isnt enough, the phones used look like they were made from 1990, they are VERY old, look like shit, and for some reason, there is a Boost Mobile scene for no reason. If that’s your kind of horror movie, then be my quest, go watch it

My personal thought here is that this is a movie primarily constructed to sell ringtones. But why buy a ringtone, when you can make them free, or get others free from PhoneZoo.com ... i dont know. Anyway, the ghost uses a pretty cool 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 phone. 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 with my sister. You on the other hand chose to see it.

[35yeros]

dam youed make a good critic, lol i agree it has a very confuzzling plot it doesnt establish cahrters well and ya i coulda soworn that i had seen a movie like it.

[Volund]

all of the new "horror" movies really suck, they are mostly centered around creepy children/lots of blood and gore... my opinion anyway

[Dead]

I saw a japanese version of this movie at it was scarier lol

[uberfun]

yeah , i give it a 5 out of 10 , and what's up with jap movies and scary chicks with long black hair? grudge , ringu , and this all have a young girl with long black hair as the "Ghost" or whatevr . but realy whats up with that?

[Hallowsend]

I liked it :O My favorite part was towards the end when they went to visit the little girl in the foster home, and as they are driving away, you see a random person in the window behind her.