One Missed Call (2008 film)

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One Missed Call
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Eric Valette
Produced by	Scott Kroopf Broderick Johnson
Written by	Andrew Klavan
Starring	Edward Burns Shannyn Sossamon
Music by	Reinhold Heil Johnny Klimek
Cinematography	Glen MacPherson
Editing by	Steve Mirkovich
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Kadokawa Pictures
Release date(s)	January 4, 2008
Running time	87 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20 Million
Gross revenue	Domestic: $26,890,041 Worldwide: $42,818,432 Rental Gross: $18.20 million DVD Sales: $6,892,426
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

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

Contents 1 Tag lines 2 Plot 3 Cast 4 Production 4.1 Release and reception 5 Relationship with Chakushin Ari 6 DVD release 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Tag lines

• What will it sound like when you die?
• Who will be next to get the call?
• When the call goes straight to voicemail, your world goes straight to hell.

[edit] Plot

Elizabeth 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. 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 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 foster care after her mother went missing.

Believing that Marie is the force 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, and 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 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.

Andrews realizes that the force behind the murders is Ellie, and races to Beth to make sure she's alright. Finding Beth unharmed, Andrews and Beth hear the doorbell ring and a knock on the door. Andrews looks through the hole, to then die of a knife in his eye, as dictated by the last call received. Ellie then reaches out to strangle Beth, but luckily the spirit of Marie appears and grabs Ellie, saving Beth again. After apparently ripping Ellie's ghost out of the phone and consuming it, Marie's ghost vanishes, leaving Beth to stare bewildered into the distance. Then the phone begins to dial a number showing that the curse has not ended. Ellie is still out there, and there is another victim that is going to die ...

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Shannyn Sossamon	Beth Raymond
Edward Burns	Det. Jack Andrews
Ana Claudia Talancón	Taylor Anthony
Azura Skye	Leann Cole
Ray Wise	Ted Summers
Meagan Good	Shelley Baum
Margaret Cho	Mickey Lee
Ariel Winter	Ellie Layton

[edit] Production

One Missed Call was announced in 2005, before being officially greenlit by Warner Brothers in early 2006, with Eric Valette signing as the film's director.^[1]The film began production in June 2006^[2][1] in Atlanta, Georgia^[3] with Edward Burns, Margaret Cho and Shannyn Sossamon signing on.^[4] On August 3, 2006 Ed Harris and Gabriel Byrne both signed on to appear in the film, however both withdrew due to unknown circumstances.^[5]

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.^[6] 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.^[7] On August 30, 2007, the film's trailer premiered on Yahoo! Movies^[8] and late September/October 2007 the film's poster was released^[9] along with other numerous promotional images.^[10] In December 2007, the official website was launched^[11] as well as numerous websites running competitions to promote the film with the first prize being an Apple iPhone.^[12][13]

[edit] Release and reception

The film opened in 2,240 theaters on January 4, 2008,^[14] and was not screened for critics.^[15] The film earned $ 5.2 Million on its opening day^[16] and as of April 16, 2008, the film has received extremely negative reviews, garnering a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 65 reviews.^[17] 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.^[18] 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.^{[19][20][21][22][23][24][25]}

[edit] 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 whilst filming the show "American Miracles".^[11] Other similarities include the characters of Beth Raymond, Leann Cole, Taylor Anthony, Jack Andrews, and Brian Sousa all being based on the original characters.^[11]

[edit] 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.

[edit] References

[edit] 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
• DVD Talk Discusses One Missed Call's Release Date
• Cinefantastique Online Review