It is difficult to express the sheer horror of sitting through the DVD of One Missed Call. Yet another Japanese horror remake (Takashi Miike's Chakushin Ari), Eric Valette's film is a desperate attempt to recapture the thrills and chills of The Ring and The Grudge.
But the only thrill you will experience here is when the film's credits roll. The thin plot hangs on a ghost that has taken up residence in a mobile phone. Yes, you read right. A series of mobile messages are received by unsuspecting college kids that contain recordings of the phone owner's future death cries.
With that out of the way, make space for the insipid star of the film: Shannyn Sossamon, who plays the lacklustre Beth. But save your criticism, she seems the only character in possession of a lone brain cell. Beth finally connects the dots and realises the obvious – all her friends received that one missed call at the time of their murders.
Investigating with Jack (Ed Burns), a policeman whose sister was a victim, she tries to unmask the murderer before she, too, gets that fateful call. They think the ghost of an abusive mother is doing the killings, but then the story takes a different turn. Not that you really care.
One Missed Call is steeped in predictability and the ghosts look as if they have bought their costumes from a local Halloween store. Rubbish acting, scripting and direction; and the scene where a televangelist attempts to exorcise a mobile phone in a church is simply the final nail in the coffin for the film.