Beth Raymond’s (Shannyn Sossamon) friends are dying. All of them received mysterious messages on their cell phones from previously deceased acquaintances ominously predicting their own deaths. Now it is her turn, and while she and veteran police detective Jake Andrews (Edward Burns) race against time to uncover the truth behind these phantom phone calls, the afterlife keeps making its presence known to an increasingly terrified Beth.

Edward Burns and Shannyn Sossamon in Warner Bros' One Missed Call

Welcome January 2008, and thank you ever so much for leaving all that September thru December 2007 goodness behind you. After all, we couldn’t let the wondrous taste of such a spectacular movie going year linger any longer than necessary, the time to return to the days of sophomoric and unrelenting mediocrity obviously now.

At least, that’s how I feel having just walked out of a screening of the new horror-thriller One Missed Call. Inconceivably awful, this remake of the Japanese sensation Chakushin Ari (which, admittedly, isn’t really all that good either) is so annoyingly stupid, so incredibly vapid, so insipidly plotted and staged, it’s almost hard to believe Warner Bros. didn’t just ship the thing straight to video avoiding the usual first weekend of the year cinematic dumping ground altogether.

I feel a bit sorry for Sossamon. I loved her in Wristcutters: A Love Story, even admitting that maybe I was wrong about her as an actress. Now once again I’m not so sure, all the bad feelings I’ve felt about her in pictures as wide ranging as The Rules of Attraction, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Undiscovered back with a brutally unmitigated vengeance. Granted, in a movie as uninspired and as unforgiving as this one maybe it isn’t her fault, the woman trapped in a picture not even Oscar-winning titans like Daniel Day Lewis or Meryl Streep could probably act their way out of.  

In other words, yes, this movie really is that bad. French director Eric Valette crosses the pond showcasing no discernable style (or even talent, for that matter), while screenwriter Andrew Klavan (A Shock to the System) has written one of the most idiotically silly pieces of tripe a viewer is ever likely to come across. If “Mystery Science Theater 3000” were still on the air Tom Servo and his quick-witted robotic friends would be all over this thing, and if there were actually something complimentary about the picture I could say the fact the picture is ripe for oceans of ridiculing would probably be it. Otherwise, I suggest you avoid One Missed Call like the plague.

Film Rating: ê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  One Missed Call Theatrical Trailer