Movie Review One Missed Call

One Missed Call (2008) 

Directed by Eric Valette 

Written by Andrew Klavan

Starring Shannyn Sossamon, Ed Burns, Ray Wise, Azura Skye

Release Date January 4th, 2008 

Published January 4th, 2008

The movie One Missed Call starring Shannyn Sossamon and Ed Burns is brought to you by the good folks at Boost Mobile. Ok, admittedly, I can't prove that the tiny offshoot of Sprint and Nextel actually sponsored the making of this pale imitation of Japanese horror cliches but they are no doubt tacit endorsers. Boost is mentioned and their logo shown so often the company could apply for a SAG card. Of course, bitching about the soulless schilling behind this little horror movie is really just my way of dodging the ennui that this movie brought about within me. Indeed, I care so little about this film I can barely bring the strength to dislike it.

Shannyn Sossamon, so cute in 40 Days and 40 Nights and so tragic in Rules of Engagement, stars here as a listless college student whose friends keep dying. You may be quick to blame her, but no. In reality, the deaths are related to their cellphones. Each of Shannyn's college pals have received a phone call with a message depicting their mode of death and the exact time that death will take place. By the way, Boost Mobile, if you are considering this as a feature, please stop. Naturally, when Shannyn takes her concerns to the police only the most handsome and single of the cops is willing to take her seriously.

Ed Burns plays the cop in typically Ed Burns fashion, disinterested handsomeness. Burns was once a flavor of the month writer-director boy genius. His natural rhythms as a writer served to cover up his ineptitude as an actor. Burns is a sieve as an actor with lines that roll off his tongue with the thud of a 2 by 4 to the head. That said, with material less than the sum of his acting, you barely notice his usual oafishness. As it turns out, the fetching cop's sister died after receiving one the death messages on her phone. There's also a bit about red hard candy and child abuse but by the time the film got around to them I was busy doing my taxes, difficult in the dark of a theater but I had nothing better to do.

I was going to delve into the film's ill logic and discuss universe theory, the thing where I say if a movie can establish a universe for its own goofy logic then even the most outlandish plot can be logical in its own way. I was going to go into those things but One Missed Call is simply too forgettable for such conversation. It was adapted from a Japanese horror film by the same title, in Japanese, by French director Eric Valette. Working in America for the first time, Valette shows an obvious talent for pointing his camera AT his actors. It's getting those actors to do something worth filming that is the problem here.

I had once thought that former model Shannyn Sossamon was going to be quite a star. She was terrific as Heath Ledger's inspiration in A Knight's Tale and cute as a button opposite Josh Hartnett in 40 Days and 40 Nights. Unfortunately, like so many pretty faces before her, she just never found the right roles and has now been relegated to the B-movie squad. At the very least, I don't think the failure of One Missed Call is entirely her fault. I'm guessing no one told her that they were using her audition takes, before she actually knew her lines. Wait.... what? Those were real takes? My bad.

I know it sounds like I hated this movie but believe me, hating this movie would take far more effort than I am willing to offer here. So, I will say, One Missed Call is a movie to watch while you do other things. Get a haircut, read a book, play video games, smoke weed. Trust me, you'll barely even notice the movie is there.

Movie Review Jeepers Creepers 2

Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003) 

Directed by Victor Salva

Written by Victor Salva 

Starring Ray Wise, Justin Long, Nicki Aycox 

Release Date August 29th, 2003 

Published August 28th, 2003 

I can remember clearly not expecting much from the first Jeepers Creepers movie and being quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it. What was most surprising was the character development--most horror films don't have any. Justin Long and Gina Phillips playing brother and sister in the movie was refreshing and the two had a familiar, brother sister chemistry that I enjoyed. 

Jeepers Creepers developed two likable, believable lead characters for actors Justin Long and Gina Philips. What also worked was director Victor Salva's creative homage to Spielberg's little seen classic Duel, a film that has long deserved cult status. It wasn't a great film but it had the right mix of horror movie scares and knowing humor. For the sequel, director Salva returns without any of the elements of the first film, save for a cameo by Long, and makes another standard issue crappy sequel right off of the Hollywood assembly line. He didn't even use the creepy song that was a supposedly critical part of the first film.

Traveling down a lonesome backwoods highway, a group of teenagers are singing (as teens are so apt to do) about the big game they just won. Suddenly, a tire blows and the team's coaches and the bus driver make a grisly discovery--a sharp throwing star-like device made from human flesh and bone. Undeterred, it's back on the bus and not long before yet another fleshy weapon fells the intrepid bus.

Meanwhile as the adults parse the inanity of the horror plot, a group of central casting's biggest cliches argues over things even more inane and ridiculous than the film's plot. As the kids become aware of the trouble they are in, we watch a couple of rather unintentionally funny moments as the adults are picked off one by one by the flying demon we in the audience know is the Creeper. It is not until one of the cheerleader chicks passes out and has a very convenient psychic vision that the cliche kids figure out what they are dealing with. Not that knowing it does any good.

Parallel to the kids on the bus is the story of a farmer played to great unintentional comic effect by Ray Wise (better known as Leland Palmer to Twin Peaks fans). Wise chews the scenery as his son is picked off by the Creeper in the scene that played well in small bites in the film's trailer. After losing his kid, the farmer goes all MacGyver/Rambo and sets out to kill the Creeper.

The film's big mistakes are innumerable, from script to cast to effects, but the biggest problem is the Creeper himself, who was largely unseen in the original. For the first 30 or so minutes of the first film, I thought the truck was the bad guy. In Jeepers Creepers 2there are extended shots of the Creeper's face that show him to be a 1930s cartoon character come to life. (I swear I saw this guy stalking Porky Pig in black and white.) This demystifying of the Creeper lessens his effectiveness to be scary and when he makes facial gestures and mimes, he reminds the audience of Freddy Krueger (and a far better horror film playing in the theater next door.)

What Freddy or Jason lost in becoming the focal point of their respective series was made up for in the personality department--Freddy with his horrible quips and puns and Jason's miming and head tilts. The Creeper has no such hook.

The film also establishes certain rules for the Creeper and then proceeds to defy them. Supposedly, he feeds on fear yet, when he swoops off with the team's coach, the guy had no idea there was anything to be afraid of. The Creeper murders numerous people offscreen who seem to have been clueless to his existence before he killed them. The Creeper is supposedly out for particular body parts but he still kills at random.

Pointing out plot holes in a horror film is like shooting fish in a barrel, so I must report the few good things in Jeepers Creepers 2. I really enjoyed Ray Wise's comic scene chewing; I realize that the humor his character creates is unintentional but it's still the best part of the film. Wise's character makes the films ending its most effective moment, even if it is, as I said, unintentionally humorous. The other good scene in the film is a dream sequence, which gives the characters a little plot update. It's an extremely convenient plot device, totally random and hackey from a screenwriting perspective, but it is well shot and Justin Long's cameo is a nice reminder of the first film's shocker climax.

It seems any film with a "2" behind the title has sucked big time this summer and Jeepers Creepers 2 is yet another example of that. Does this mean that Hollywood will make fewer sequels? No. Does this mean they will try to make them better? No. What does it mean then, it means there are plenty more crappy sequels to come and likely one of them will be bad enough to make you forget how bad Jeepers Creepers 2 was.