One Missed Call (2008 film)

The film begins with a young girl being rescued from a burning hospital. A firefighter asks her if her mother is still inside, to which she remains speechless.

Meanwhile, Shelley, a college student, sits outside near her koi pond in her Japanese-styled home and after having a chat over the phone with Leann, she hears her cat making strange noises. Bewildered by the situation, she suddenly hears strange murmuring in the pond and out of nowhere, a hand emerges and drags Shelley into the pond, drowning her. A red candy then appears on the surface and the same hand proceeds to drag the cat and drowns it as well.

Many weeks later, college student Beth Raymond is talking with her friend, Leann, who attended Shelley's funeral. Leann's cellphone rings with a lullaby-like ringtone, and it says it's from Shelley. Leann listens to the voicemail, which is herself screaming. The voicemail is dated three days in the future. Leann begins to experience hallucinations that make her increasingly anxious. While walking home minutes before the time on the voicemail, she calls Beth. Beth runs to get Leann, but unfortunately, she arrives at the same time where Leann accidentally falls off from an overpass and lands on top of a speeding train, killing her. A red candy pops out of her mouth and Leann's severed hand dials an unknown number on her phone.

At Leann's funeral, Beth's roommate, Taylor, is talking about Shelley receiving a strange voicemail before her death, just like Leann had. Brian, Leann's ex-boyfriend, begins to see disturbing apparitions, and leaves the funeral in a rush. Beth catches Brian outside a coffee shop and Brian shows her a voicemail he received the night Leann died, from Leann's phone. Beth realizes the voicemail is dated mere seconds away. An explosion at a nearby construction site sends a rebar through Brian's torso. Similar to Leann, Brian coughs out a red hard candy and collapses, as Beth stares in horror.

When Beth arrives home, a distraught Taylor is waiting for her. Taylor says she knows she's next, even though she hasn't received a voicemail. Beth assures her that it isn't going to happen, and takes the batteries out of both their cellphones to ensure they can't receive calls. Later that night, Beth and Taylor are awakened by the lullaby ringtone coming from Taylor's battery-less cellphone. Despite having no power source, Taylor's phone screen displays a video message of her death, dated two days in the future.

The next morning, police detective Andrews visits Beth, saying his sister was the one who called Shelley, despite his sister being dead at the time of the call. He also says he traced the voicemail left on his sister's phone and was going to find out more about the person who sent it, Marie Layton. Andrews goes through the local autopsy reports, and finds a report for Ellie Layton, Marie's eldest daughter, who died of an asthma attack. They find records for hospital visits for Ellie and Laurel, who is Ellie's younger sister. Laurel was injured often, which leads Beth to suspect abuse from her mother.

Meanwhile, Taylor was contacted by a TV producer who heard about the deaths and mysterious phone calls, and who planned to film an exorcism being performed on Taylor and her phone at the time of Taylor's foretold death. Beth races to Taylor while the exorcism is being filmed and arrives in time to see Taylor being choked to death by an unseen force, after which a red hard candy falls out of her mouth. Suddenly, Beth's phone begins to ring and she finds a voicemail dated for tomorrow. In an effort to save herself, Beth decides to find out more about the hospital fire alone.

At the abandoned hospital and with less than 30 minutes left, Beth is frightened by various apparitions. She runs into Andrews, and the two try to escape the hospital. They are later separated and Beth finds a crawlspace. She discovers Marie's body, burned to death and clutching a cell phone. At the time of Beth's foretold death, Marie's corpse assaults Beth while weeping. It is later revealed that Marie's ghost was actually protecting Beth, not trying to hurt her. Amazingly, Beth survives her predicted death.

Afterwards, while visiting Laurel, Andrews finds a compact-disc in her teddy bear. The disc contains a video from a camera Marie hid to monitor Laurel and Ellie. The disc reveals that Ellie had cut Laurel's arm with a butcher knife while performing an occult blood ritual. Marie entered and realized that the abuse she had been blamed for was Ellie's fault all along. She then took Laurel to the hospital, leaving Ellie locked in the bedroom. Ellie suffered an asthma attack and died while dialing her mother's cell, thus initiating the curse and making Marie its first victim as she then died in the hospital fire. Back in present time, Laurel tells Andrews that though Ellie hurt her, she always gave her red hard candies, same as the ones found in the mouths of all the victims. Andrews' cellphone begins to ring with a voicemail dated for thirty minutes in the future.

Andrews realizes that the force behind the murders is Ellie, and races to Beth. After he arrives at her house, the two hear a knock on the door. As Andrews looks through the peephole, a knife stabs through it and kills him. Ellie's spirit appears and reaches out to kill Beth, but the spirit of Marie appears and grabs Ellie, saving Beth yet again. A red candy spills out of Andrews' mouth and his cell begins to dial a number on its own, revealing that Ellie's ghost is still out there, and more people will die.

One Missed Call was announced in 2005, before being officially greenlit by Warner Bros. in early 2006, with Eric Valette signing as the film's director.[4] The film began production in June 2006[4][5] in Atlanta, Georgia[6] with Edward Burns, Margaret Cho, and Shannyn Sossamon signing on.[7] On August 3, 2006, Ed Harris and Gabriel Byrne both signed on to appear in the film; however, both withdrew due to unknown circumstances.[8]

Sound designers used the voice of Skid Row front man Sebastian Bach in the hospital basement scene. The exact clip comes from Bach's scream at the beginning of "Midnight Tornado", a song from the band's 1989 debut album, Skid Row.

One Missed Call includes most of the scenes and characters that were in the original 2003 film. These include the exorcism scene, where one of the characters is killed while filming the show American Miracles.[13] The characters of Beth, Leann, Taylor, Jack, Brian, and Shelley are respectively based on the original characters Yumi, Yoko, Natsumi, Yamashita, Kenji, and Rina. Another reference is contained within the theatrical trailer; while Leann is walking down the street, a piece of the original ringtone from One Missed Call (2003) plays in the background until she falls from the overpass.[13]

• Official website
• One Missed Call on IMDb
• One Missed Call at AllMovie
• One Missed Call at Box Office Mojo
• One Missed Call at Rotten Tomatoes
• One Missed Call at Metacritic