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The movie is a remake of the 2003 Japanese original by Takashi Miike. The American version opens with a young girl and her cat being drowned by some ghostly hands in a pond. After her funeral, her friend Leann (Azura Skye) receives a “one missed call” message on her cell phone is post dated two days in the future supposedly from her dead friend. As she listens to the voice message, she hears herself screaming in fear. Concerned and scared she confides in Beth (Shannyn Sossamon) who unfortunately witnessed Leanne fall from an overpass into the path of an oncoming train on the exact date of the missed call. Later, Beth sees another friend die after confessing that he received a missed call from Leanne about the time she died. Beth eventually realizes that she and her remaining friend Taylor (Ana Claudia Talancon) might be the next recipient of the freak calls. Beth teams up with Detective Jack Andrews (Edward Burns), whose sister also died in a similar way. They trace the series of calls to Marie Layton (Rhoda Griffis) who apparently was maltreating her children Ellie and Laurel. They try to unfold the story behind Marie and her daughter in a race against the deadline of Beth’s missed call.
The movie fails miserably to deliver spine tingling suspense expected of the genre or compared to the original version. The script is underwritten and the acting is flat. There are unexplained and unnecessary plots like Beth being an abused child. The movie is laden with cheap scare tactics at every opportunity that it becomes predictable and exasperating. Scoring is so predictable. Even the prosthetics and CGIs are not very impressive and too cute for a horror movie.
Stripped of blood, gore and mother ghost, there isn’t much within the film. Disturbingly, evil in this film resides in a young little girl. While the story supposedly works on the idea of the “revenge of the deranged” it doesn’t bother to explain the character’s motivations save for her being innately bad from the start. Further, evil seems to triumph throughout the story even though the good spirit, after taking its sweet time. Finally manifest itself to save Beth. Evil here is unstoppable since the curse continues to the final scene. Although there is lesser blood, gore and body count compared to other films of similar genre, the scenes, situations and over-all presentation are not suitable for young audiences.
(Date Reviewed: 01 February 2008)
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