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One Missed Call punches the contemporary fear buttons of infernal technology and child abuse. But, toredial applicable catchphrases, this garbled American remake of Takashi Miike's already staticky 2004 exercise in J-horror is a wrong number. The bad machine is the ubiquitous cell phone, specifically ones that herald death by recording the sounds of each recipient's demise from the future. And the child-abuse subplot involves an all-purpose blend of bad mommy and demon child archetypes, souped up with the wandering-ghost consequences so beloved in Japanese popular culture, and a touch of dialing from beyond the grave.
You've got to deliver a lot more than a customized ringtone to impress the iPhone generation, or to scare anyone familiar with the old glimpsed-human-who-morphs-into-ghoul routine a demand that defeats French director Eric Valette. (This is his first American production.) Shannyn Sossamon plays the Pretty Girl Who Survives with a minimum of particularity; Ed Burns offers even less as the Cop Who Believes Her. As the cop who doesn't, the comic Margaret Cho shows up for a line or two and her on-set experience should make for another good monologue someday, considering the riffs she's done about answering-machine messages from her own very unghostly mother. D
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Add Your Comments
You Might Also Like
- Movie Review Wristcutters: A Love Story (Oct 19, 2007) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
- Movie Review Looking for Kitty (Sep 01, 2006) | Scott Brown
- Movie News Pop culture hit and miss (Oct 26, 2007)
- In the News Ed Burns finally marries Christy Turlington | Gary Susman
- Movie Review Stuck (May 30, 2008) | Owen Gleiberman
- DVD Review Tenebre (May 27, 2008) | Chris Nashawaty


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