BEFORE: Well, as they say in baseball, some days you win, some days you lose, and some days it rains. Do they say that in baseball? We had a TON of rain last weekend in NYC, to the point where the news channels all had their weather forecasters out on the streets, downtown Brooklyn was under like three feet of water, and it was a bit like Hurricane Sandy or Hurricane Ida all over again. Usually we sit and watch the flooding on TV in another city like New Orleans or more recently, Los Angeles, but it's different when it's YOUR city, isn't it? I lost a day of work because the alert went out to not use the subways and just shelter in place, and I was happy to comply.
My point is, I was trying to link to a movie like "The Black Phone", but it just didn't happen because that film didn't fit into my chain this year, and this one did. To some extent it's the luck of the draw, I can move things around and find an order of films that works, according to my rules, but I just can't change who is in what film. I can't control the wind, I can only move my sails to take advantage of it. Is that something else that people say? I think I saw that on an inspirational poster or somebody's yearbook caption once. Anyway that's how it works around here at the Movie Year, or occasionally how it fails to work.
Ray Wise carries over from "Jeepers Creepers 2".
THE PLOT: Several people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves - messages which include the date, time and some of the details of their deaths.
AFTER: Look, I never set out to become an expert on horror movies, it just kind of happened. Discussing the finer points of THIS scary movie vs. THAT one isn't where I thought I would end up, considering my career has largely been in animation. I tried working on documentaries in college (too boring) and then worked on some music videos (too - well, too something but that's another whole conversation) and maybe if you fall backwards into cartoons that's where you're supposed to be? I haven't made up my mind about that, it's only been 30 years so I may have to give it some more time to be sure. My mother told me when I was a kid that I was so funny and always doing weird voices that I would be the next Rich Little when I grew up - I have done some voice work in cartoons as needed, so she wasn't that wrong, exactly. But putting a reel together and focusing on voice-overs just feels like too much work in a way - still, sweet gig if I could somehow get it.
But we're concerned with voice-MAILs tonight, and how deadly they can be. Our clueless victims tonight all get voice-mails sent to their flip-phones (umm, yeah, everyone here has a flip phone in 2008, that should probably be NITPICK POINT #1) and the messages all come from someone who recently died (there's a big error in the posted plot synopsis, right there) with an incorrect date and time on it. That's because the messages come from the FUTURE, and that's the exact date and time when THEY are going to die, and the voice-mail contains the last thing they're going to say before they're horribly killed. You know, as opposed to gently or nicely killed.
OK, a couple of things, if we can somehow get past the fact that nobody has upgraded to a smart phone yet, in 2008. I sure can't get past that, like, OK boomer, maybe buy a real phone now, they're like free if you pick the right plan. OK, they're not really free because they amortize the expense out over time and just add it to your bill a little each month, but you know what I mean. But the first iPhone came out in 2007, and I realize it takes 3-5 years at least to develop and release a movie, so much like the phones themselves, this film was hopelessly obsolete the moment it hit the movie screens. It's a wonder why Apple didn't follow up with a marketing campaign that their new iPhone is NOT haunted, in fact there's special software that can block calls from demonic entities - this is an I-phone, not a DIE-phone, or something like that, we'll come up with a better tagline, I'm sure.
Either way, get rid of the damn flip-phone and upgrade already, would you please? And now we also see the downside of being in one of those "Friends & Family" networks, where calls to everyone you earmarked as a friend or a family member are FREE - OK, they're not really free because probably they just upped the cost of all the other calls so you wouldn't even notice, but you know what I mean. But when a demonic undead entity haunts your flip phone and starts making calls to everyone in your F&F network, then you may regret your choice of plan. Well, you'll already be dead, but again, you know what I mean.
This movie SO wanted to be "The Ring", or if it couldn't be "The Ring" somebody at least regretted the fact that the name "The Ring" was already used for a horror movie, because wouldn't that have made a better title here? And for some reason, everybody also has the same exact ring tone on their phone, maybe this is the one that came with the phone and nobody knew how to change it (that tracks...) but man, does it suck. It's somehow even more annoying than that xylophone one that comes with the iPhones, and I didn't even think that was possible. It's a horrible little tune that sounds a bit like it's played on a toy piano, and it's gonna drill into your brain like any earworm would and it's going to feast on whatever's in there, and then you're going to forget the name of that actress on that TV show you liked years ago. (It's Brett Butler, by the way...)
Note to self: make sure to put "The Ring" on your list of horror films to watch some day.
"The Ring" was about some VHS tape that if you watch it, you die in a few days - so, umm, what's the point of KNOWING this if you can't do anything to change that? Similarly, what is the point of cracking the secrets of time travel if all you're going to do with it is relay messages back into the past so people can hear themselves die and then also know the exact date and time that's going to happen? Again, what's the point of KNOWING this if you can't do anything to change that? There's one guy here who gets the voice-mail message of doom and he hears himself saying, "I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on..." and so of course, naturally I'm thinking he's going to get decapitated, that would only be ironic enough to be fitting. Nope, it was a fake-out, and so was watching him cross the street, thinking he was bound to get run over, he comes BACK across the busy street to get his phone and he says "I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on..." and then he dies in a somewhat different way, with his head still attached, and like, where's the irony? OK, maybe this movie isn't "Final Destination", either.
Note to self: make sure to put "The Final Destination" on your list of horror films to watch some day. There's like what, five or six movies in that franchise? Maybe next year.
OK, but Beth is determined to NOT die after she gets her voice-mail message from her dead friend. So you'd think, maybe the answer is to just NOT SAY that sentence? Would that help? Am I helping? If she had said to her friend Brian, "Hey, maybe don't say that thing about how you'd forget your head if it wasn't screwed on, maybe you won't die then," that could have been really helpful. But no, instead she teams up with a gritty police detective who thinks that maybe his sister died the same way - she got a phone call from a dead friend and then she died and her body was out in the woods for a few weeks, so he's ALSO trying to solve this puzzle, like he thinks maybe his sister was the first to die, and they can trace the future calls via phone records through maybe 3 or 4 dead people until they get to Beth. I guess it's nice when somebody else believes the unbelievable pattern that seems to be taking place.
It's got something to do with a giant red marble that is found in every victim's mouth after they die. But no, it's not a marble, it's a piece of hard candy that just looks like a marble, only the victims didn't eat any candy, also (N.P. #2) it's too big to be a piece of candy, it's somehow even bigger than a gobstopper, and so it's probably a choking hazard for adults even. This is just another thing here that seems like it's a good idea and another part of the puzzle, but no, it's really neither, it's just another bit of randomness that goes nowhere.
It's got something to do with a reality show where there's a reality show that claims to be about everyday miracles and the producer is really interested in the story about the cursed phone calls, but then when he gets the current victim on his show, the show turns out to really be about exorcism, and that's not the right remedy for the problem, either, because an exorcist can't upgrade you from your flip-phone or get you out of your contract with Boost Mobile. In fact, it turns out there is simply NO WAY to get out of your cell phone contract (yeah, this also tracks) so the best and smartest thing you can do is smash your phone on the ground and step on it until it's in a million pieces. Screw it, the phone was "free" right? Good advice and problem solved, only now, you have no phone, you complete loser. But at least you're out of the haunted friends and family network.
No wait, it's got something to do with a fire at a hospital where the detective's sister was an intern, and the woman who drowned in her koi pond was also a paramedic who rescued a girl from the fire. Right? And there was a geriatric nurse who worked there who just might be the first link in the phone chain, as she had a daughter who died and was also a victim of Munchausen's-by-Proxy syndrome or something, and there's a missing nanny-cam and the daughter who survived is suffering from PTSD, and you know what, I don't even care any more because this movie is SO all over the place and can't seem to focus on any one thing for very long. The movie ITSELF has ADD, so how I am supposed to pay attention to it long enough to figure it all out? Just please, decide what you want to really be about and then let me know what that is, OK? Don't make me use the "R-word" to describe this story, it's not cool.
I'll try to work in "The Black Phone" next October, but really, I'm not hopeful that it's going to make any more sense than this one does. Yes, I know, horror movies are their own thing and they don't have to make sense, but this is pretty egregious even if I make allowances for that. It's just an excuse to use some of the standard horror tropes, including the dangers of answering your phone ("Scream") and then visiting the creepy hospital ("The Cure for Wellness" and like, many others, including "Nightmare on Elm Street").
Note to self: make sure to put "Nightmare on Elm Street" on your list of horror films to watch some day. Enough time has passed now - but that's how many movies?
Also starring Shannyn Sossamon (last seen in "The Rules of Attraction"), Edward Burns (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Ana Claudia Talancón (last seen in "Fast Food Nation"), Azura Skye (last seen in "Town & Country"), Johnny Lewis (last seen in "The Runaways"), Jason Beghe (last seen in "The Next Three Days"), Margaret Cho (last seen in "Friendsgiving"), Meagan Good (last seen in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods"), Rhoda Griffis (last seen in "The Best of Enemies"), Bart Hansard (ditto), Dawn Dininger, Ariel Winter (last seen in "Killers"), Sarah Jean Kubik, Raegan Lamb, Karen Bayer (last seen in "Fist Fight"), Alana Locke, Dave Spector, Mary Lynn Owen, Roy McCrerey (last seen in "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"), Lauren Peyton, Greg Corbett, Donna Biscoe (last seen in "Girls Trip"), Edith Ivey (last seen in "Robocop 3"), Wilbur Fitzgerald (last seen in "Freejack"), Randy McDowell, Geoff McKnight (last seen in "The Clearing"), Katie Kneeland (last seen in "Barely Lethal"), Jason Horgan, Kaira Akita, Luke Williams, Laura Harring (last seen in "Mulholland Drive").
RATING: 3 out of 10 crawling millipedes
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