One Missed Call Parent Guide
Parent Movie Review
Moviemakers have long understood the power of a ringing phone as an instrument of suspense—-the uncertainty of the caller’s identity. (Think When a Stranger Calls, The Ring and Phone Booth to name a few fright inducing films.) Now with the proliferation of wireless communication, cell phones are becoming tools of the horror genre.
In One Missed Call, Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon) has watched three friends (Ana Claudia Talancon, Azura Skye, Johnny Lewis) die in gruesome succession during the past week. Before their demise each of them received a missed call notice from the most recently deceased. But the voice in the message belongs to the phone owner and predicts the date, time and final words of the one who is about to bite the dust. The arrival of the call, signaled by an ominous ring tone, initiates some creepy hallucinations and panic as the victim faces his or her final hours.
However, when Beth’s own cell chimes with the haunting melody, she refuses to sit by passively waiting for her death. Enlisting the help of police detective Jack Andrews (Edward Burns) whose own sister died under similar circumstances, Beth resolves to track the creepy killer to the source.
While dialing up the new technology for spreading fear, the film’s makers still rely on all the old standbys—-rain, heavy panting, fleeting shadows and the perpetually dark sets. (Doesn’t anybody believe in turning on the lights?) Unfortunately, the combination of eerie ingredients fails to produce the kind of scares it intended. Jump scenes become cinematically predictable thanks to the building score and the widening eyes of the actor on screen. Grisly accidents—impaling, dismemberment and strangulation during an exorcism ritual—add to a growing number of corpses but are more grotesque than scary. Even a suicide (seen through a flashback), fire casualties, child abuse and a chilling drowning are more disturbing than terrifying.
And by the time this remake of a Japanese film concludes, there are too many storylines left dangling and only a marginal explanation for all the gore on screen. Combined with frequent profanities and some brief sexual dialogue, those factors may encourage most families to let this film ring through rather than picking up when the call comes in.
Starring Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns, Ana Claudia Talancon, Ray Wise.. Theatrical release January 3, 2008. Updated March 18, 2009
One Missed Call
Rating & Content Info
Why is One Missed Call rated PG-13? One Missed Call is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense sequences of violence and terror, frightening images, some sexual material and thematic elements.
This thriller turns a cell phone ring tone into a scary experience when people receive a missed call notification dated within the next couple of days, and then they die from gruesome deaths at the exact time of the message. While not particularly gory and with very little blood displayed, the deaths are still bothersome. Characters are impaled with construction rebar, run over by a train (a dismembered hand is seen holding a cell phone), and drowned in a pond. An unseen spirit kills one character during an exorcism in a church during which statues of Jesus Christ and Mary are shown with scary faces. Discussions of child abuse and a depiction of a woman verbally abusing a child are included. An image of a person hanging is seen—suicide is implied. Language consists of both moderate and mild profanities along with terms of Christian deity used as expletives. Sexual content consists of a brief mention of the term “phone sex” and a couple is briefly shown in their underwear after they are interrupted in a bedroom. A secondary character is smoking a cigarette and others are drinking socially.
Page last updated March 18, 2009
One Missed Call Parents' Guide
How have cell phones provided new ways for writers to create concepts for movies? What movies have you seen recently that would be drastically different (or impossible) were it not for cell phones?
Home Video
The most recent home video release of One Missed Call movie is April 21, 2008. Here are some details…
DVD Release Date: 22 April 2008
One Missed Call will leave a message on 22 April 2008, in the following formats: DVD (widescreen), HD-Combo and Blu-ray. Answer if you dare.
Related home video titles:
This movie is a remake of a popular Japanese horror film, as was The Grudge.
A man, who is confined to his apartment, suspects he has witnessed a murder in the classic Hitchcock movie Rear Window.