After receiving a phone call from herself, prophesizing her death, a twenty-something co-ed is drowned in her fish pond by unseen hands. The next friend to get a call also dies, and so on and so on. Beth (Shannyn Sossamon) was a friend of all the victims, and as the the ghostly killer appears to to use cell phone contact lists to choose who’s next, it’s only a matter of time before she gets the call. Teaming up with a police detective (Edward Burns) whose deceased sister is part of the chain of death, Beth attempts to uncover the mystery of the original caller before it’s too late.
There’s a pivotal moment in One Missed Call, when Beth explains who the ghost is and how she operates, that says it all about this film. She spells out the plot, and the preview audience around me laughed. It wasn’t a nervous laugh, nor was it “with” Beth. No, it was at the actress, and the writer, and director. That’s not a good sign.
One Missed Call is a surprisingly faithful remake of a Japanese film (Chakushin Ari) that teetered on the brink of horror, ready at any moment to fall into full-on parody. It had little to offer with regard to originality, being a close copy of Ringu and following the ghost movie template without variation. Outside of a clever (and satire-laced) scene where a soon-to-be victim appears on a sleazy faux news show, Chakushin Ari has nothing worth remaking. It got by not on its plot, but on cult director Takashi Miike’s style and on some substantial scares.
One Missed Call ’08 can’t brag about its style, misses the parody boat completely, and isn’t frightening. Oh, it’s got a few jump startles, but nothing that’s going to keep a small child up at night. That means it has to rely on its plot—you know, that horror plot that left the audience laughing.
Sossamon and Burns are never believable, not in specific situations nor as their characters in general. There isn’t a moment when they behave like actual humans, but they can’t be blamed. With the dialog they were given, they didn’t have a chance. This is the type of movie where people speak only to spell out plot points: a girl reads the day and date aloud off of her cell phone screen, even though the only person around has read it herself, and then goes on to explain that the date is two days in the future. How helpful, at least to audience members who don’t know the date within the film.
One Missed Call is more coherent than its Japanese counterpart and Ray Wise has what it takes to play the sliminess of Geraldo Rivera, but those don’t make a movie. One Missed Call isn’t unpleasant to sit through. I wouldn’t even call it bad, not compared to the dozens of low budget slashers I’ve been subjected to in the past month; it’s just silly and pointless.