I'm sure I'll someday join the twenty-first century and buy a cell phone, but until then, I have films like "One Missed Call" to remind me of how frightening they are. One could argue that that's the point of the story: to show how our ever-growing reliance on cellular communication is incredibly scary, and we in turn fall victim to an overpowering influence. But this is only a theoretical approach to the pre-filmed story--if you've actually seen the final film, then you'll know that such a deep concept was never even considered. This movie is a full-blown fright fest, an excuse to scare the audience with lots of terrifying imagery and a wealth of sudden noises. All that is superficially fun, and I will admit that this is a very good-looking horror film. But even as the scares are piling up, there does come a point when something like an understandable story is needed. "One Missed Call" eventually loses itself to plot twists that make for more questions than answers, which isn't good for those who want to be truly horrified.
The first major scene shows the death of a college student, a death that kick starts a chain reaction of other deaths. All the deaths are foreshadowed via a message left on each victim's cell phone. The message shows a future date and time, and what's even scarier, it plays a recording of what the person will say at the moment of their death. An interesting idea, no question, although similar ideas have been done before: in "The Ring," the victims died seven days after watching a demonic videotape; in "The Grudge," the victims entering a haunted house fell victim to an angry ghost; in "Pulse" the victims were all sent a possessed e-mail. There's a theme here--all these films are American remakes of Japanese horror films. So, too, is "One Missed Call." While I haven't seen the film on which it's based--"Chakushin Ari"--and while I haven't read Yasushi Akimoto's original novel, I can say that the idea of vengeful spirits working through technology and/or people is starting to get old.
The basic plot is as follows: Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon) begins losing all her friends after one of her classmates is found dead. She doesn't know why; all she does know is that each of her friends received a voicemail on their cell phones, one that told them when they would die and what they would say at that moment. It's actually quite creepy: each time a person gets a call, his or her phone plays a quiet music box lullaby instead of a ring tone. And after they hear the message, they begin to see disturbing things, like phantom centipedes and bizarre figures with pale, dirty, rotted faces (one figure has screaming mouths where it's eyes should be). As soon as they die, they cough up a piece of hard candy, after which their cell phones magically dial another number, marking the next person on the list. Beth eventually gets the call; with the help of Officer Jack Andrews (Edward Burns)--who has a personal connection to the case--she hopes to solve this mystery before her time runs out. |
