One Missed Call

One Missed Call | |
| Rated: | None |
| Director: | Eric Valette |
| Cast: | Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns, Ana Claudia Talancon, Ray Wise, Azura Skye |
| Release Date: | 2008 |
| Genre: | Horror, Suspense, Mystery |
Another J-horror movie remade by a Hollywood studio for American gore fans. Dumped into January's recycle bin of overcooked cinematic turkeys, Ed Burns and Shannyn Sossamon (from the underrated Rules of Attraction) share screen time as a cop and a collegiate searching for the terrifying meaning behind death prognostications emanating from young peoples' Boost Mobile cell phones. It features a few cheap boo! moments, and is rewritten serviceably enough to string together spectacular death scenes, convincing horror fans that they aren't being cheated. Thankfully, the movie's casting is decidedly quirky, featuring Margaret Cho as an unhelpful police officer, for example. (Was Sarah Michelle Gellar unavailable this go-round?) The screenplay, however, doesn't give anyone much to work with. The usually somnambulant Burns looks ready for a nap in all of his scenes, and while Sossamon doesn't fare much better, at least she doesn't scream for rescue, as J-horror's self-sufficient heroine continues to be the one successful element carried over. This shallow remake of Takashi Miike's intentionally conventional 2003 original is really just a garbage disposal disguised as a Cuisinart.