One Missed Call

One Missed Call
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Eric Vallette
Produced by	Andrew Kosove Broderick Johnson Scott Kroopf Jennie Lew Tugend Lauren Weissman
Written by	Screenplay: Andrew Klaven Book: Yasushi Akimoto
Starring	Edward Burns Shannyn Sossamon
Music by	Reinhold Heil Johnny Klimek
Cinematography	Glen MacPherson
Editing by	Steve Mirkovich
Studio	Alcon Entertainment Kadokawa Pictures Equity Pictures Intermedia Films
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	January 4, 2008 March 20, 2008 July 19, 2008
Running time	87 min.
Country	Japan  United States  Germany
Language	English Japanese German
Budget	$20 Million
Gross revenue	Domestic: $26,890,041 Worldwide: $45,847,356 Rental Gross: $18.20 million DVD Sales: $6,892,426

One Missed Call is a 2008 American remake of the 2004 Japanese film Chakushin Ari. The film was released in North America on January 4, 2008 and was directed by Eric Valette and written by Andrew Klavan. The film stars Edward Burns and Shannyn Sossamon. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

Plot

Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon) is terrified by the deaths of four friends, three of which she personally witnessed, after they received chilling phone calls apparently from themselves in the future, showing the exact time of their deaths. After every death, a small red candy is found in the victim's mouth. In all the cases, the people who are going to die will see strange apparitions shortly before being killed, such as the woman seen on the theatrical poster with a baby carriage. Beth reports these strange occurrences to the police; however, they think she is delirious. Detective Jack Andrews (Edward Burns), however, believes her, stating that his sister died in a similar way. Together, they begin to unravel the mystery of the chain of calls, but are unsure if they can figure it out before Beth's phone starts to ring the same eerie tune.

They eventually trace the series of calls back to a woman named Marie Layton, who was apparently abusing her children, Ellie (Ariel Winter) and Laurel, for attention, as in cases of Munchausen by Proxy. They learn that Ellie later died of an asthma attack, and that Laurel is in a foster home after her mother went missing.^[1]

Believing that Marie is the source behind the murders, Beth travels to the recently burned-down St. Luke's hospital, where Marie was last seen, bringing Laurel in for a cut on her arm. After searching the hospital, Beth finds the body of Marie in the hospital ducting, where she apparently burned to death, clutching a cell phone. Marie's corpse moves and assaults Beth while weeping. She collapses when Detective Andrews makes his way into the ducting to help Beth. During this episode, the time of Beth's own phone call passes without her dying.

After contacting authorities, who arrive to collect the body, Beth returns home and Andrews goes to tell Laurel that her mother is dead. While visiting, Andrews sees a drawing that was drawn by Laurel on the wall. He realizes the drawing is a teddy bear and the baby carriage.^[2] Previously, it was shown as the jar with bugs and the baby carriage were in the area of where the nanny cam might be.^[3] He goes back to Laurel's room to get the teddy bear to see if there might be a nanny cam on the back. He finds a video disc in the back of Laurel's teddy bear. The disc is a video of a camera Marie hid in her children's room to monitor Laurel and Ellie. Ellie, clothed in a black hoodie, cuts Laurel's arm with a large butcher knife. Marie comes in and finds the children, realizing that the abuse she has been blamed for has been Ellie all along, and leaves to take Laurel to the hospital, locking Ellie in the bedroom.

Ellie, frantic, tries to force open the door, and suffers an asthma attack. Reaching for her inhaler, she finds it empty, and dies while dialing her mother's cell phone, making Marie the first real victim of the curse, dying in the fire. Laurel enters the room and Andrews says that it was Ellie who hurt her all the time, not her mother. Laurel nods, and speaking for the first time since the death of her mother, says, "But she always gave me candy," and holds out one of the red hard candies found in the mouths of all the victims.

The cellphone that Andrews gave Beth receives a voicemail, implying that Beth will soon be in danger again. Andrews realizes that the force behind the murders is Ellie, and races to Beth. Finding her unharmed, Andrews and Beth hear a knock on the door. Andrews looks through the spyhole. However, as Beth screams (as in her second voicemail message), a knife stabs through the spyhole and kills Andrews. After an explosion outside, Ellie's spirit appears and reaches out to strangle Beth. The spirit of Marie appears and grabs Ellie, saving Beth again. Marie's ghost vanishes, leaving Beth to stare bewildered into the distance. A red candy spills out of Andrews's mouth and his cell phone begins to dial a number on its own, revealing that Ellie' ghost is still out there, and more people will die.

Cast

Production

One Missed Call was announced in 2005, before being officially greenlit by Warner Bros. in early 2006, with Eric Valette signing as the film's director.^[4] The film began production in June 2006^[4][5] in Atlanta, Georgia^[6] with Edward Burns, Margaret Cho and Shannyn Sossamon signing on.^[7] On August 3, 2006 Ed Harris and Gabriel Byrne both signed on to appear in the film, however both withdrew due to unknown circumstances.^[8]

On June 14, 2007 the film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense sequences of violence and terror, frightening images, some sexual material and thematic elements.^[9] In television advertisements, the theme song is called Life is Beautiful by Sixx:A.M. The film was intended for release on August 24, 2007, however was later pushed back to January 4, 2008.^[10] On August 30, 2007, the film's trailer premiered on Yahoo! Movies^[11] and late September/October 2007 the film's poster was released^[12] along with other numerous promotional images.^[13] In December 2007, the official website was launched^[14] as well as numerous websites running competitions to promote the film with the first prize being an Apple iPhone.^[15][16]

Sound designers used the voice of Skid Row front man Sebastian Bach in the hospital basement scene. The exact clip comes from Bach's scream at the beginning of "Midnight Tornado" - a song from the bands 1989 debut album, Skid Row.

Release and reception

The film opened in 2,240 theaters on January 4, 2008,^[17] and was not screened for critics.^[18] The film earned $ 5.2 Million on its opening day^[19] and as of April 16, 2008, the film has received extremely negative reviews, garnering a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 71 reviews, and gave it their moldy tomato award for worst movie of 2008.^[20] Metacritic reported the film had an aggregate score of 24 out of 100, based on 14 reviews. The film has since made $26,890,041 in the United States and $15,892,778 overseas for a worldwide total of $42,782,819.^[21] Although the film is a remake of Chakushin Ari, the film has been strongly criticised of borrowing plot elements and being similar to The Grudge, Final Destination, The Ring and Pulse.^{[22][23][24][25][26][27]}

Relationship with Chakushin Ari

One Missed Call include several scenes that were in the original film. This includes the exorcism scene, where one of the characters is killed while filming the show "American Miracles".^[14] Other similarities include the characters of Beth Raymond, Leann Cole, Taylor Anthony, Jack Andrews, and Brian Sousa all being based on the original characters. Also, if you pay special attention to the theatrical trailer, you'll notice that while Leann is walking down the street, a piece of the original ringtone from "Chakushin Ari" plays in the background, until she falls from the overpass.^[14]

DVD release

The DVD and Blu-ray was released on April 22, 2008 with no special features. It's included in both widescreen and fullscreen format on each side of the disc. Also, the movie has been released on iTunes and on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

References

External links

• Official site
• One Missed Call at the Internet Movie Database
• One Missed Call at Rotten Tomatoes
• One Missed Call at Metacritic
• One Missed Call at Box Office Mojo
• One Missed Call at Allmovie
• One Missed Call at MySpace