After his wife commits suicide her husband Edward Cranston invites a group of 4 friends to his house under mysterious circumstances. Edward explains to the 4 friends that his wife has included them in her will and they will receive a $100,000 (which puzzles the friends as his wife hated them). The catch? They have to stay on the phone for 1 minute... A seemingly straight-forward task, but what's really going on here?
It's rare that I'm shocked by a film's rating (if anything I tend to find that I am overly critical and will usually rate films lower than their IMDB rating), but here I am rating a film with a current average IMDB rating of 4.2 with a 9 out of 10 and this is coming from someone who has reviewed just over 900 films and rated over 1300 films at the time of writing this review. Am I insane? Have I genuinely watched the film I here you ask? Well the answer is No and Yes respectively and I will try to explain my rating...
The Call was pretty much everything I both want and expect from a horror film; it was creepy, suspenseful, intriguing and at times pretty damn chilling. Despite what others have said this film does have a story to it and it's a fairly good one (not mind-blowing, but engaging enough). The 4 friends are not the most likeable of people initially, but later when they are developed further we can see painful events from their past proving that a lot of what we were witnessing earlier was mere bravado.
Director Timothy Woodward Jr does a good job overall in his handling of the material; true what you see here is nothing you haven't seen before, but the scares that he put in front of me did come across as quite genuine rather than silly (again this seems to be a bone of contention with many reviewers).
The film contains well-known faces such as Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell who, despite not having as much screen time do put in the best performances; then again the younger cast members lack experience, but all have varying degrees of potential.
I concede that the abrupt way the film ended did come as a bit of a shock, but at the same time The Call's various knots had been tied together meaning it did reach a natural conclusion (albeit an abrupt one).
Perhaps the film caught me in the right mood or maybe the wind tonight in the north west of England is blowing in the right direction, but whatever the reason I liked this film and still cannot quite believe its low rating.
It's rare that I'm shocked by a film's rating (if anything I tend to find that I am overly critical and will usually rate films lower than their IMDB rating), but here I am rating a film with a current average IMDB rating of 4.2 with a 9 out of 10 and this is coming from someone who has reviewed just over 900 films and rated over 1300 films at the time of writing this review. Am I insane? Have I genuinely watched the film I here you ask? Well the answer is No and Yes respectively and I will try to explain my rating...
The Call was pretty much everything I both want and expect from a horror film; it was creepy, suspenseful, intriguing and at times pretty damn chilling. Despite what others have said this film does have a story to it and it's a fairly good one (not mind-blowing, but engaging enough). The 4 friends are not the most likeable of people initially, but later when they are developed further we can see painful events from their past proving that a lot of what we were witnessing earlier was mere bravado.
Director Timothy Woodward Jr does a good job overall in his handling of the material; true what you see here is nothing you haven't seen before, but the scares that he put in front of me did come across as quite genuine rather than silly (again this seems to be a bone of contention with many reviewers).
The film contains well-known faces such as Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell who, despite not having as much screen time do put in the best performances; then again the younger cast members lack experience, but all have varying degrees of potential.
I concede that the abrupt way the film ended did come as a bit of a shock, but at the same time The Call's various knots had been tied together meaning it did reach a natural conclusion (albeit an abrupt one).
Perhaps the film caught me in the right mood or maybe the wind tonight in the north west of England is blowing in the right direction, but whatever the reason I liked this film and still cannot quite believe its low rating.