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(Review originally written at 29 October 2010)

When you are getting a person to make an horror movie, you should at least be sure that that person understands the genre. This just didn't seemed the case with this movie, since it was being one ineffective and even quite boring one to watch.

To be fair, the original Japanese movie horror series this movie got based on wasn't already anything to impressive to begin with. But it had a nice concept, so of course it got picked up by Hollywood. And this movie is not so much a remake of any of the Chakushin ari-movies but it's more a stand alone film, that got based on the same concept, of people getting a phone call and hearing their own death in their voice mail, a few days in advance. And really, I think it's nice that this movie is trying to be more than just an ordinary remake and try out some new stuff with its concept, also not in the at least because the Japanese movies were also far from great ones and seemed to have far more potential in it. But problem is that this movie does far too little good or interesting on its own with its concept, which is the most disappointing thing and is what making this movie an ineffective one.

Seriously, as an horror movie this one is immensely lacking. I'm not exaggerating when saying that this movie is boring for most part. But this is not just due to the fact that there is not anything happening tension- or horror-wise but more because the movie throughout remains an incredibly flat one. It really made me loose interest in this movie and half way through I was already wishing it would end soon.

You just don't care for any of its characters, not because the actors are bad but more because they are very poor writing and the movie has some serious bad dialog in it.

As for its actual attempts on horror; It's just weak. It's one of those movies that relies mostly on its main characters looking scared, even though at times there isn't even anything happening. And when it comes to the supernatural, the characters suddenly don't seem to be impressed or shocked at all with what just happened or what hey saw. They go through some pretty traumatic experiences throughout this movie, like seeing some friends die gruesomely in front of their eyes and literally see some ghosts and other outlandish stuff but hey, life must go on they must have thought. The movie also has quite some CGI effects in it, which just never works out too well for any type of horror. No matter how nice it all looks, it just isn't anything scary.

One ineffective, shallow, boring, unimaginative horror attempt.

4/10

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About Frank Veenstra

Watches movies...writes about them...and that's it for now.
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