It’s attack of the murderous Razr’s: the remake, in what is easily one of the worst horror movies of 2008, one of the worst movies of 2008, and one of the worst remakes of all time. And that’s not hyperbole, suckers. The remake of the 2003 Takashe Miike horror film stars a veritable cast of B listers dragging us through the doldrums of bland performances, limp tension, and a series of jump scares that go to ridiculous lengths to keep audiences awake; how else to explain a shock from a deafening asthma inhaler, and a falling marionette puppet?
Now, I’m not one of those folks prone to comparing the original to the remake, especially since I’ve yet to see the Miike quasi-horror film, but I’m guessing that as mixed as fans were on that, the original must be better than this. Couldn’t it? I have to believe it. After an inadvertently comical opening with the barely used Meagan Good, we follow a mentally disrupted young girl suffering from a tepid back story (involving her mom and abuse in the way of “Mommy Dearest”) who finds that her friends are dying one by one after receiving mysterious cell phone calls. I’ve officially lost all hope for Shannyn Sossamon, who plays one of the most unsympathetic heroines of all time getting herself into horribly predictable scenarios while unable to admit that she may be inadvertently causing these calamities her friends get into with a twist of ironic fate a la “Final Destination.” Seriously, some of the deaths here happen because she’s too stupid to realize she’s helping to play out the scenarios on the phones.
Though the film is, in its essence, more of a damn pastiche of mediocre horror films than an actual remake, the problem here is not so much that Valette and co. take from the aforementioned title, but that the lead ups to the blood splatter and murders are so utterly nonsensical and insulting that it was impossible not to feel some twinge of disgust while watching. At first a supernatural splatter flick, the script takes a wild turn in to the arena of a religious thriller, and then a tragic tale of an abusive mother, Andrew Klavan has no idea what “One Missed Call” is supposed to be, if it’s anything at all. Adding to the misery, there’s the ever wooden Ed Burns as a forgettable detective Jack Edwards only serving as a limp foil to Beth’s whining, and some of the more inexplicable walk-ons from people like Ray Wise as an exploitative religious guru, and Margaret Cho. Yes, Margaret flippin’ Cho.
I hate to say it, but she seems to be in this movie only to add an Asian element while the rest constantly flips through different themes and storylines until it finds an appropriate direction. This sadly leaves a slew of questions. Do the ghosts need excising from the human bodies? Do they possess the people who call? If these ghosts can give these people a ring tone they don’t have and get their numbers why can’t they clean up their trail in the phone bills? Why was there a fucking exorcism on a cell phone?! There are so many more questions I was left with, but mainly I just chose to lock it out of my collective memory as soon as the credits rolled. From the insulting plot twists, the confused nonsensical storyline, and the terrible acting, “One Missed Call” is a huge step back for the argument of remaking Asian films, and will sadly also be an argument against ghost films, to boot. I just want to forget it existed.
