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Rachel is
a successful reporter and has a perfect life
together with her boyfriend. But all that's about to
change as late one night, someone breaks into their
house, and kills Rachel's boyfriend. In order to deal
with the trauma, she decides to move back in with her
parents for a while and start work for a local channel.
When she's asked to do a report on the history of some
old houses in the area, she discovers that there's a
horrible secret buried within a house - and she might
be the key to the puzzle.
Mike Feifer is one step behind The Asylum with his
cheap DTV knock-offs, and A Dead Calling tells the
classic tale of a female reporter investigating a
haunted house with a mysterious past. Whether it's a
coincidence or not that the female reporter has the
same name as Naomi Watts had in The Ring, I'm not
sure. Either way, Alexandra Holden pales in comparison.
The movie revolves around a young, and naturally blonde,
female journalist who's doing a report on the history
of some old houses in the area when she discovers that
one of the houses has a dark past. Apparently, it was
once inhabited by a successful doctor who was sued for
malpractice and who later killed his own family. But
why is Rachel seeing the ghosts of the deceased? What
are they trying to tell her? Well the answer is pretty
obvious if you ask me, and the reveal of the twist isn't
so much of a reveal as it is a "well, duh!".
When I said that Mike Feifer was one step behind The
Asylum, I meant that he never really goes all the way
through with his knock-offs. He actually adds his own
ideas to the concept and tries to make the stories
a bit more original - which he, believe it or not,
succeeds with. There are no strange noises or creepy
ghost girls to be found in here, but on the down side,
the story never becomes very interesting either. We
all know where it's going to go and how it's going to
end (only, I was surprised to see how weak the ending
was, it was all over way too fast).
A Dead Calling is filled with great actors who were
tragically misplaced. Sid Haig as a loving father
and Leslie Easterbrook as the caring mother? Really?
What were they thinking? Alexandra Holden, who's
normally a terrific actress, also disappointed me
gravely. I don't know whether it was due to bad
directing or if she simply couldn't get into the part,
but her performance was never very believable.
Ultimately, this was a fairly bland experience. It
wasn't bad, but it wasn't very exciting either. The
story didn't feel interesting enough, the characters
were off, the dialogues felt forced and the movie
lacked a good flow. Other than one or two good scares,
it didn't have a whole lot going for it. Forgettable
and average horror thriller, and definitely not
something that you have to rent.
Some knife stabbings.
Occasionally cheesy, but overall decent score.
Another bland experience from Mike Feifer which wasn't
bad, but wasn't entertaining enough to keep the viewer
interested in what was going on. It's not a complete
waste of time, but I wouldn't exactly recommend it
either, if you have nothing better to watch, I guess
you could do worse.
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