One Missed Call (2008) | DVD Review

Growing up, I was always told “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” A noble idea, but in the world of film critique, you’re bound to come across a dud or two that have absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever, necessitating a wholly negative review. One Missed Call comes pretty close to being one of those duds.

In this remake of the 2003 Japanese horror film Chakushin ari (which, by the way, was only a good film because of the directorial talents of Takashi Miike), college students begin receiving missed call notices on their cell phones that are displayed as having been received a couple of days in the future. The message that gets played back when they “answer” their missed call is actually their reaction at the moment of their own violent deaths. Sure enough, at the exact same time as the time-stamp on the message, the recipient is killed. Sounds creepy, right? Well, it’s not. No matter how much tense music and how many spooky apparitions the film can throw at the viewer, there’s nothing shocking when you know who’s going to die and when they’re going to bite it. It’s left to the unusual duo of psych student Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon, The Rules of Attraction) and detective Jack Andrews (Ed Burns, The Brothers McMullen, She’s The One) to try to figure out why these strange things are happening and how to stop them.

The most shocking thing about One Missed Call is that the sript actually got green-lighted for production. Sure, the original made tons of money, but it was still a poor script that had Takashi Miike going for it. This one’s got Eric Valette in the director’s chair, making his first English language feature. Sure, his Maléfique is one of the films responsible for the current “New Wave of French horror” that is equal parts social commentary and all-out gore, but he’s nowhere near as big a name in the genre as Miike, and there’s little he could have done with this big-studio PG-13 script. Valette does manage to set up a couple of unexpected scares, and Ed Burns does his best to make the most of the bad dialogue and huge holes in the plot, but Sossamon just looks lost and emotionally numb, barely registering a modicum of fear even when her life is threatened. The rest of the cast also seems to just be going through the motions in anticipation of their paychecks and their SAG credits.

The fact that there is not one single bonus feature on this DVD goes to show how everybody involved in the film probably just wants to forget about it. There are a few trailers, all for films that look better than One Missed Call. Plus, you get both the widesreen and full-frame version of the film.

The DVD cover of One Missed Call asks, “What will it sound like when you die?” I don’t know, but it’ll probably go something like this: “Gee, I wish I had the 87 minutes back that I wasted watching One Missed Call. Hey, watch what I can do…..AARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!”. This turkey should definitely be one missed movie.

Movie rating – 0.5

Disc Rating – 0.5