ONE MISSED CALL

Director: Eric Valette
Stars: Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns, Azura Skye, Johnny Lewis, Jason Beghe, Meagan Good, Ray Wise, Margaret Cho
Year: 2008
Rating: PG-13

Wow, did this movie suck. So much so, I'm tempted to end my review there, but will press on and at least give you an idea why. An American remake of a popular Japanese horror film (sad to say, I've only seen parts of the original, so far), One Missed Call stars Shannyn Sossamon as one of a group of friends who begin to receive mysterious "one missed call" alerts on their cell phones. The reason the alerts are so mysterious? Because the caller ID on their phones are saying that each missed call came from the cell phone of a friend of theirs who's just recently died - and the date on the call is always a day or two away ... a date not only after said friend's death, but one that hasn't even happened yet! Further, when you go into the phone and listen to the message, it's your own voice you are hearing - your own voice, alas, in the last remaining seconds before you die. And as if all this isn't disconcerting enough ... the date and time the call came in, as listed on your cell, becomes the date and time you actually die - always just a day or two away.

As her friends start to perish in freaky, Final Destination-style incidents, Beth (Sossamon) spends more of her time freaking out ... until she gets her own death notice/missed call, and finally gets off her butt to find out - along with police detective Jack Andrews (Edward Burns, doing his best work with a crappy script) - just why the heck this is all going on. It all involves evil children, accused nannies, a hospital fire, and Margaret Cho as a sarcastic cop. Normally you'd think at least that last one would be entertaining, but this is truly a bad, dull, and not very scary "horror" film from beginning to end. Badly-developed characters, a convoluted storyline without much suspense or scares, and a fairly talented cast totally wasted in order to produce just under 90 minutes of drivel make One Missed Call one film worth missing. * - Get Reel