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Beth's friends
are dropping dead one by one after
having received obscure voice messages on their cell
phones where they can hear themselves die. Together
with detective Jack Andrews she goes on a quest to
find out the truth behind these messages... but when
she receives the infamous voice message as well,
she has to battle against time before she's next.
Chakushin Ari, the original One Missed Call, was
released in cinemas here at the same time that it was
released in Japan and I remember how excited I was
going into it, and I also remember how the entire
crowd laughed their way through that pitiful mediocre
mess that ran for almost two hours. Now I've always
considered the concept behind these movies to be quite
bad and I don't get why they became so successful
(there have been three Japanese movies in this
franchise so far) but what they've managed to do with
this remake is rather remarkable. They've actually
turned a bad concept based on a mediocre movie (at
best) into an even worse movie. This time it wasn't
even funny.
The script is pretty much just translated from the
original script with very few alterations. They've
reduced the character developments so that you couldn't
care less about any of them and they've replaced all
the scares with hilariously bad CGI-effects (that scene
at the end was just unbelievable). It felt like I was
watching some poor DTV Ring rip-off and people were
actually falling asleep inside the cinema. Yes, that's
how bad it was. While the original movie at least had
a good pace and an okay story, it was so poorly
executed this time that I really struggled to stay
awake through the entire thing.
Takashi Miike didn't seem to take his movie very
seriously and knew that it wasn't anything groundbreaking.
Heck, I'm not even sure why he did it because of the
jokes and cheap gags that he threw in there but as
usual, Hollywood misses the point and approaches it as
a pure horror flick. Or should I say a pure teen horror
flick. There's no suspense, the acting is below average
and there's nothing even remotely intriguing about the
movie - only teens would find this crap somewhat decent
(and I don't even think that they fooled them this
time judging by its rating on IMDB).
I don't really feel like reviewing a movie that I've
all ready reviewed before once again, especially not
since I didn't like either of the two versions of the
film. Can you believe that this is the fourth movie
about missed calls that I've had to sit through? Now
if you don't feel sorry for me, you probably have yet
to see either of these movies. If you're expecting a
Ring-like horror flick, you will be disappointed. This
is an Americanized take on a mediocre Japanese horror
movie and the result is just atrocious. Skip.
PG-13, only an impalement and very little more.
I hated the new cell phone melody for some reason and
the rest of the score didn't work very well either.
Hollywood has run out of ideas and are now remaking
Japanese rip-offs of Japanese rip-offs, why even bother?
Why not just make their own rip-off instead? I'm sure
that it would have been much more entertaining than
this atrocious horror flick. If One Missed Call sets
the bar for horror flicks in 2008, I may seriously
consider to retire as a reviewer.
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