When Beth Raymond witnesses the death of her two closest friends she knows that there is more to it than pure tragic coincidence. Both victims, days before their death, received voice messages of their last few moments of life. The thought and reality of such incidences prompt Beth to visit the police; unfortunately her story sounds completely bogus and she is turned away. But when Jack Andrews hears her story he believes her and together the two work to uncover the story behind the deadly telephone call before one of their numbers becomes victim.
Taken from the popular Asian horror genre that turned out the hit film The Grudge, One Missed Call attempts to scare audiences with haunting spirits and the overused jump scenes. Unfortunately the film misses on almost every account as the acting, dialogue and even story turn out to be a complete dud, prompting me to wonder just how many more Asian adaptations it is going to take before they finally lay this one hit wonder genre to rest.
The film's first miscue was that of its casting. Shannyn Sossaman lacks any real talent as she brings a scared, emotionless college student to the screen. Her two closest friends have just been murdered under weird if not psychotic terms and yet she never sheds a tear, never loses her nerve, hell she doesn't even seem at all worried. Her performance was at best lackluster, making Sarah Michelle Gellar's Grudge performance seem Oscar-worthy. In addition Edward Burns takes his career down another notch as he underperforms as the attempted hero Jack Andrews. His performance was dry and uneventful as he becomes handicapped by the story and its dialogue.
In other events the film's story was weird if not ridiculous. First off it is rated PG-13 which basically means that the studio took out the blood and gore in exchange for higher revenue. The result was horrific as none of the death scenes were realistic, instead involving ways of death without blood or violence. In addition the dialogue was lame, coming across as something that was written by a ten year old. Each line seemed forced, bringing a steady unneeded awkwardness to each scene.
Then there is the premise. We have a group of college students who are being terrorized by a spirit that is somehow traveling through phone lines, picking one person from the previously deceased cell phone and calling their next victim. Why is never occurs to these people to clear out their phone books is beyond me, but when a film has such an easy, unused conclusion you have to wonder just how good the story even is. Not to mention that the ending seemed more worried about setting up for the sequel instead of giving the audience a conclusive ending. At the end the story just sat there, unfinished, waiting for a continuance, and thus leaving the audience disappointed.
In the end the film was very disappointing. Suffering from inadequate acting and a messed up story One Missed Call struggles to make it to the finish line, and unfortunately takes the viewers along for the awful journey.
