Of course, judging from the trailers for One Missed Call, it's sort of expected. Still, one always tries to hold out some hope...

     Ripping off Japanese horror(otherwise known as J-horror) yet again, a major film studio brings us the adaptation of Yasushi Akimoto's Chakushin ari(based upon his novel of the same name). The story deals with deadly ghosts(are there any other kind anymore? Whatever happened to Casper?) who send premonitions of a person's imminent death via a voicemail on their cell phone. Once the call is received, the person will die a gruesome death in only two days(unlike The Ring's Samara, who took a whole week to kill someone. Lazy ass).

     And that's about as exciting as this movie gets.

     I swear, horror movies are just getting worse all the time, and we've pretty much run out of ideas on how to sufficiently scare people. I can see the day coming when I'll write a review of a horror film and it'll only be two words: it sucks.

     The "story" begins in the backyard of Shelley Baum (Meagan Good), a young college student who's on the phone with a friend, having a worrisome conversation about some message she received, but assures her friend she's okay. There's a pond in the backyard, and once Shelley's off the phone, she's amazed that her cat has somehow made it from one side of the pond to the other, when there aren't any clear ways for it to do so. Soon enough, she can't see her cat and believes it might have fallen into the water. Taking a close look(smart, huh?), she seems oddly surprised when a hand reaches out from the water and pulls her in to her death. The cat soon reappears, sitting on a rock, screeching in fear for its mistress. Apparently the dead person in the water is annoyed by this, because it reaches up and pulls the cat in as well.

     Seriously. That's really how the movie begins.

     Can you see the steep downhill curve we'll be taking from here on out?

     Cut to: opening credits showing dozens of people on their cell phones in everyday life. Director Eric Valette is obviously trying to set the mood for how cell phones are such a danger to us. They're terrifying. Terrifying, I tell ya. FYI: Valette is a French director making his American movie debut adapting a Japanese film. Can you say lost in translation?

     We are then introduced to Beth Raymond(Shannyn Soss-amon), another college student who's throwing a party. Attending the party are her friends Brian(Johnny Lewis) and Leann(Azura Skye), who recently broke up with each other. Leann is upset, but more from the fact that she received a call from Shelley's cell phone dated two days into the future. The message which came through is of Leann's own terrified voice followed by an ominous sound which cuts off the call. She doesn't know what to make of it, other than that she should just try and ignore the strangeness. She does, until she begins seeing things: images of creepy people with twisted faces, half-formed images and bugs burrowing into her unknowing friends' hands. Eventually Leann ends up on a railroad overpass, talking to Beth on the phone at the exact time she's supposed to die. She falls onto the tracks in an absolutely contrived manner(honestly...if she had just stepp-ed forward one foot, she'd survive!) and gets struck by the train in one of the worst effects in recent memory.

     Since this story takes place at the intersection of Coinci-dence Street and Unbelievable Boulevard, Beth happens to live less than two minutes from the train station and arrives just in time to see the incident...and Leann's severed hand still dialing the next number in her phone's memory. This is supposed to be a creepy moment, but it's unintentionally laughable instead...one of the first of many laughable mom-ents to come.

     One Missed Call is one confused movie...for one thing, it can't keep track of its own rules. The way in which Shelley dies in the beginning is divergent from the more Final Destin-ation style deaths the majority of the cast undergoes, where-by they're killed by everyday objects and accidents. That is, with the exception of Beth's friend Taylor(Ana Claudia Talan-con), who is also physically killed by one of the ghosts in full view of a paranormal reality show crew led by sleazy producer Ted Summers(Reaper's Ray Wise, who must have been blackmailed with incriminating photos, to appear in something like this). Each call received by an intended victim specifies that they will die two days from when they get the call...until the evil spirits finally get to Beth, and she's due to die the very next day! What, did the ghosts get impatient? Do they have other things they need to do, and figured they'd off Beth and then get on to the laundry?

     Eventually, Beth manages to get together with Detective Jack Andrews(Edward Burns), whose own sister died horribly and like the other victims, has a piece of hard candy stuck in her mouth(don't ask...the "revelation" at the ending is so con-vuluted and is such a ripoff of The Ring that it would be a waste of time to even try and explain it). Part of the "mystery" turns out that the spirits choose their victims by going through their cellular phonebooks. But again ignoring its own rules, shouldn't Andrews have been one of the first victims, since he would've been in his sister's speed dial, rather than Shelley, who was just another nursing intern with her?

     Again, the unintentional yuks come fast and furious in sev-eral scenes, particularly at one point when Beth and Taylor angrily stomp on the latter's cell phone in an attempt to get the unholy ringtone to stop. Why not just find a way to send the evil spirits a copy of the bill instead? Most cell phone rates these days are enough to send even the Undead flee-ing in terror.

     Like in most grade-Z horror, toward the ending both lead characters--Beth and Jack--lose whatever intelligence they had up until that point, and begin rushing headlong into danger like idiots. One Missed Call is the type of film that should've been released straight to DVD, where it would immediately wind up in the bargain bin at K-Mart. You want good horror? Rewatch the infinitely superior The Ring, which will provide you with intelligent characters, a logical plot, genuine chills and an ending that won't have you feeling like you need to down a bottle of Pepto-Bismol when you're done.