Attempted J-Horror ‘One Missed Call’ Instead Grudgingly Makes Us Laugh

CHICAGO – Hello, J-Horror. Please hang up and dial again. In fact, the message “please hang up and dial again” should have been given to director Eric Valette before accepting Takashi Miike’s remake “One Missed Call” as his American directorial debut.

Hollywood’s successful calling to remake mediocre J-Horror films has finally ended with this tragic interpretation of “Chakushin Ari” in which an evil spirit haunts the cellular phone network for a group of bad-acting college friends.

Shannyn Sossamon in “One Missed Call”. Photo credit: IMDb

When Beth Raymond (played by Shannyn Sossamon) finds that her friends are dying horrible deaths after receiving phone calls leading to strange voicemails with their own voices, she teams up with Jack Andrews (Ed Burns) to discover the truth.

One melodious ring tone after another helps these two easily forgettable characters discover that their future selves are responsible for these disturbing messages of death.

Sossamon’s performance is riddled with languid quotations like: “Monday? But it’s only Friday!” and “Let’s get rid of these phones!”

Burns’ screen time is an equally brutal match when both show absolutely no theatrical emotion after the gruesome losses of friends and loved ones throughout the film.

Ana Claudia Talancón in “One Missed Call”. Photo credit: IMDb

A twisted tale of a bad cellular network, haunted asthma medication, red-rock candies and a ridiculous peep-hole phobia string along this often laughable and non-existent storyline.

Unexplained hallucinations of insects and masked figures pop in and out of scenes in an attempt to fulfill the film’s genre needs.

The predictable child-abuse backgrounds are told while completing a consistent job of confusing the viewer with unnecessary imagery and tragic elements.

Shocking sound effects occasionally remind the audience that this is in fact a horror film and seem to be the film’s only positive feature throughout such a cinematic nightmare.

In Takashi Miike’s version, he shows the audience “B”-grade horror images and occasional jump-out-of-your-seat moments to leave the viewer with a subtle yet frightening bewilderment.

Valette’s take hardly falls into the horror genre at all and might fare better as a low-grade comedy with its several laugh-out-loud moments.

As for this J-Horror remake, the phone terror theme is tired and Valette’s version is even more predictable than the original. If it’s going to call itself a horror, then don’t make us laugh.

By ALLISON PITACCIO Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com allee@hollywoodchicago.com