A young woman accidentally dials the number of a serial killer who decides to make her his next victim.A young woman accidentally dials the number of a serial killer who decides to make her his next victim.A young woman accidentally dials the number of a serial killer who decides to make her his next victim.
Photos
Alexis Paige
- Child
- (as Alexis Page)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWas filmed in an abandoned mental hospital in Boston's Longwood Medical area.
- ConnectionsReferences Lisa (1990)
- SoundtracksWake Up
Performed and Written by Timo Ellis
Under License by 70% Water Music
Courtesy of Records and Tapes Records
Featured review
Clever idea, but it doesn't get the help it needs from its script
Long Distance starts shakily enough. Monica Keena (who it took me a while to remember as Rachel from "Undeclared") plays Nicole Freeman, a recently-jilted post-grad Psych major working on her thesis in a run-down former middle-school-now-apartment-building in Boston (great quirky/creepy locale, by the way). One night she accidentally misdials a number and gets a call back from the guy she reached, who happens to be a serial killer on a cross-country rampage headed for...well, you know.
Nicole goes through a series of phone exercises at the beginning of the film that are now very familiar to all those who've seen Scream and its many predecessors and progenitors. These calls are much of the usual mental torment/mind f*** crap, and they don't really hold the menace they need to relay. This trope is getting so old, it's really hard to make this scenario seem anything but a parody. Keena's acting, which is middling at best --- she seems, if anything, a bit too young for the part --- doesn't help.
Still, Long Distance isn't badly written. There's something vaguely enticing about a woman who's sucked into playing live "bait" for a wacko on a nationwide trek. It's worked by the screenwriters with an almost playwright's inventiveness. It keeps you watching and if you analyze the script in retrospect, it's actually pretty clever in the placement of clues that set up the plausibility-stretching denouement.
But that's really the crux of the problem with this overall earnest, well-intentioned shoestring indie: you shouldn't *have* to go back and put the pieces together...they should make more of an impact the first time you experience them.
I'm giving this one high marks more for what it could have been than what it is, but I'd caution you...it's not for the unobservant or those who need a big-picture sheen on their thrills.
Nicole goes through a series of phone exercises at the beginning of the film that are now very familiar to all those who've seen Scream and its many predecessors and progenitors. These calls are much of the usual mental torment/mind f*** crap, and they don't really hold the menace they need to relay. This trope is getting so old, it's really hard to make this scenario seem anything but a parody. Keena's acting, which is middling at best --- she seems, if anything, a bit too young for the part --- doesn't help.
Still, Long Distance isn't badly written. There's something vaguely enticing about a woman who's sucked into playing live "bait" for a wacko on a nationwide trek. It's worked by the screenwriters with an almost playwright's inventiveness. It keeps you watching and if you analyze the script in retrospect, it's actually pretty clever in the placement of clues that set up the plausibility-stretching denouement.
But that's really the crux of the problem with this overall earnest, well-intentioned shoestring indie: you shouldn't *have* to go back and put the pieces together...they should make more of an impact the first time you experience them.
I'm giving this one high marks more for what it could have been than what it is, but I'd caution you...it's not for the unobservant or those who need a big-picture sheen on their thrills.
helpful•50
- bob_meg
- Aug 14, 2011
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $700,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 30 minutes
- Color
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