The Call (VIII) (2020) User Reviews (148)

Absurd screenplay, nothing scary n the end is a big meh.

[Fella_shibby · 3/10 · 4 November 2020]

Inspite of having horror veterans like Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell, the film is not at all interesting. It aint scary n has a lousy n ridiculous screenplay.

Honesty, i got enticed into seeing this cos of the two veterans starring together in a horror film.

Firstly the film takes almost 45 mins to pick up n then when the action starts, it gets filled with cliches, traumatized childhood, teenage secret, etc.

It has the same lol demon/possessed fella doing hyper extension of the joints but this time the demon/possessed fella looked as if it were doing break dance movements. Why these demons/possessed fellas gotta do unnecessary hyper extention of joints is beyond me. Ther is unnecessary annoying screaming, unnecessary red color n one helluva lousy screenplay. The end is a big wtf.

Boring and pointless

[lewismusgrove88 · 4/10 · 18 October 2020]

Besides a few creepy bits with Lin Shaye, the movie was pretty crap. No real story and boring.

Interesting idea, but failing in transition to the screen...

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 12 November 2020]

Initially when I sat down to watch the 2020 movie titled "The Call", I must admit that I was sort of having some hopes for the movie, as it had two horror icons on the cast list.

Well, as it turned out then the storyline in "The Call" was definitely interesting enough, if it wasn't actually being original. However, the movie's writer, Patrick Stibbs, just didn't really manage to deliver where it mattered for a horror movie. Sure, I mean, the movie was watchable and sort of entertaining enough, but it just was way too bland and generic for my liking.

And yeah, it was because of Tobin Bell and Lin Shaye, two iconic names, faces and voices in the horror genre, that I initially sat down to watch it. And I will say that they both definitely did spruce up the overall enjoyment of the movie.

The acting was good for a movie such as this. It wasn't outstanding, but it was adequate enough. Perhaps it was because of the limitations of the script and the directorial hand of Timothy Woodward Jr. that sort of restrained the performers to fully give what they had.

Visually, for a horror movie, then "The Call" just didn't deliver. I mean, the atmosphere in the house was interesting and lots of nice details to the house, but the otherworldly sequences were just too flaccid, and didn't really feel like being scenes of personal hell and anguish enough.

"The Call" is the type of horror movie that came and went without as much as leaving a dent in the horror genre. I mean, I didn't even know about the movie before I had the chance to actually sit down and watch it. And having watched it now, I can honestly say that I highly doubt that I will ever be sitting down to watch "The Call" a second time.

Perhaps if you are a newcomer to the horror genre, then you will find some proper entertainment in "The Call", or even some spooky stuff and scenes. But for a seasoned horror veteran such as myself, this was but a stroll in the park.

My rating of "The Call" lands on a very mediocre five out of ten stars.

Don't waste your time or money to see this

[littlefish-82050 · 1/10 · 8 October 2020]

If you are into loud, weird, not at all scary "scary" movies this is what you should watch. But if you want to watch an actual scary movie I would skip this one.

The story was odd, to say the least. Why was it set in the 80's?!? That added nothing to it, but bad fashion choices. The whole storyline was pointless, as you found out in the end.

The main character kills her own sister, blames an old lady, and gets away with it. Somehow this ruins the old lady's life and makes her evil and a witch? What bad police work! She literally kills her sister and dumps her and her bike in a creek with a path and no one ever finds her?

What was the point of the Carnival? On going theme in the movie that is never explained. I thought it was going to be that her sister was killed there or something. But no!

Also, parts of the movie were super blurry and dark. It was also super loud but that could had been the theatre's fault. Tons of pointless screaming. So I would skip this movie, but that is just my opinion.

Boring, not scary, bad story line, and predictable.

[nfdudley · 1/10 · 9 October 2020]

This seemed like a low budget Netflix movie with two known actors they hired in order to get more views. Not scary at all. Seemed like a bad teen movie. The ending was terrible.

SAW meets INSIDIOUS. FAILS!

[ferdmalenfant · 1/10 · 30 October 2020]

Oh wow...like any horror fan I was really rooting for this one, with "Mr Saw" Tobin Bell and "Mrs Insidious" Lyn Shae, both in the same movie how could you go wrong? The script is the worse piece of garbage that ever existed. The only good thing about this movie is Lyn Shae's acting and she's not onscreen very much. Sadly, this was/is a terrible movie.

What a stupid movie

[choueiri101 · 1/10 · 30 October 2020]

Speaking slowly and having long pauses between sentences is not suspenseful or scary.

The stupid make up is not scary.

The ridiculous script, now that was scary. How someone thought that nonsense up and how it held a 6.9 rating at the time of my post is scary.

The movie felt like it went for 400 hours, no exaggeration.

Please avoid

Easily the worst movie I've seen in theaters.

[kayzeeb22 · 1/10 · 17 October 2020]

Whoever rated this film a 10 was obviously paid to do so. Easily the worst movie I've seen in theaters. Hands down. No plot. Horrible acting. Absolutely horrid !!!!!

One honest review!

[finaldestination-g · 6/10 · 12 November 2020]

5.5/10

Is this movie the worst of 2020! No, is it a masterpiece?! No!

Reviews are quite weird for this one, it is true the storyline is basic and seen may times but it was fun enough to keep me on my seat till the end.

Pros: Cinematography is beautiful, loved the colour contrast and the aesthetic of it. Creep factor was there and present in every location set. Some of the acting is decent. Story is good enough to keep you entertained for an afternoon.

Cons: Some of the actors just need to go back to acting school, makeup of the ghosts sometimes was a bit basic and amateurish. Predictable jumpscares. Rushed ending. And the storyline could be better, it felt this was the first draft of the script tbh.

Not worthy to be seen in cinemas so I would suggest for anyone who wants to watch it to wait till it drops on streaming.

Call 911 - This film needs immediate emergency assistance

[omendata · 4/10 · 31 October 2020]

What the heck is Lin Shay and Tobin Bell doing in this mess - Yes you guessed it, to give it that poster appeal to all the Saw and Insidious fans out there and really is shameful exploitation of us the viewers who will pay for this thinking it is going to be of the same level of cinematic excellence!

Exceptionally good actors appearing in sub average nonsense like this; it seems they have joined the Ron Perlman, Lance Henriksen, Nik Cage and John Cusack brigade in the let us just take any old rubbish for a paycheque club - very sad!

Do not get me wrong the acting for the main part is good and it had a good build up but the denouement and idea just fizzled like a wet, limp little firecracker. I did love the homage to the 80's with the old style John Carpenter'esque analogue synths in keeping with when the movie was supposed to be set and I didnt see a smartphone or tablet anywhere so they got the setting right and the premise had promise, so where did it all go wrong?

Well, for a start there is no real horror, zero scares and crucially the idea behind the call was....well just a telephone call to the dead woman that really did not give us an oooh or an ahhh like movies like Saw or Final Destination did and so just followed the sad old tropes of budget bin horror basket movies of yesteryear and so it fails execrably in every way almost.

I am not so harsh as to give it a 1/10 as many of the reviewers have as this means it is the worst movie you have ever seen and we have movies like the Bad Batch with Keanu Reeves for that and many others; the acting is good, it is well filmed and professionally made unlike a lot of the shaky cam, dreadful acting Netflix ordure pouring out of film schools these days, so I give this one a harsh but fair, harsh but fair...4/10 hatchets!

Perhaps I watched a different film?????

[jimbo-53-186511 · 9/10 · 12 September 2021]

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.

You'd think with Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell, this would be decent at least. You'd be wrong.

[angotti81 · 3/10 · 27 February 2023]

Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell are horror Icons. Unfortunately they can't save bad writing, scare less deaths, poor dialog and a weak story.

Set in the mid eighties, the dialog is far more cliche than real, unlike Stranger Things and the recent It Ch 1. The acting is maybe a notch above a soap opera, but I'll give the lead credit. At least he's trying unlike the other 3 "teens." Seriously the line delivery felt straight out of Not Another Teen Movie.

The plot, the dreadful plot. Teens harass an old woman one of them suspects of witchcraft and the disappearance of her sister. Something happens to old woman. Teens must face their past...yada yada.

It is as cliched as it sounds but unlike movies like Saw, the past of a few of them is not their fault. So badly done.

I'd recommend watching any movie with Tobin Bell or Lin Shaye besides this one. It stinks.

Good cinematography, bad everything else.

[becky-92346 · 3/10 · 28 November 2022]

The Call (2020) follows a group of friends who must survive the night in a strange old couple's house while sinister forces are at play. This was a really disappointing film. It showed potential throughout but I feel the filmmakers weren't thorough enough with the plot and scriptwriting.

The cinematography was actually pretty good and there were some nice colour palettes, the visuals were definitely the best thing about this film. The visuals were noticeably better in the second half, with some really creepy and unnerving shots and some good camerawork. It's a shame everything else in the movie was poor because it really did show potential.

In terms of sound design, the film was very average. The score was basic with not much to it and I just found that the sound design added nothing interesting to the film. Also, the music didn't fit the tone and just felt bad it of place at times.

The acting, specifically from the high school students, was bad from the start and I found all their characters to be very unlikeable. They made too many dumb decisions and felt incredibly unrealistic. Tobin Bell and Lin Shaye, were in this film too, they felt wasted and they were way too good for this film. The actors weren't helped by the dialogue, which was way too cringeworthy!

Lastly, the movie was structurally messy and I had no idea what was going on throughout most of the film. It didn't set up the story well and therefore wasn't engaging in the slightest, I ended up getting bored really fast! It also wasn't scary enough because the stakes didn't feel too high. However, there was a plot twist that I didn't see coming and I actually really liked, but this was ruined by a dumb ending.

2 big ones

[kosmasp · 5/10 · 22 September 2021]

No offense to the rest of the cast, but without Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell ... this movie probably would not have faired as good (with me and others I'm sure). Having said that, it doesn't mean everything else is bad. The story may be quite by the numbers (with a decent twist, even if you can guess that from miles away), but I've seen worse.

Talking about seeing: cinematography is also really good. So a neat little movie overall, that has almost all the horror movie cliches you can imagine ... just be aware of what you are to watch ... and if that is worth your time.

So Stupid

[sucraf · 2/10 · 1 November 2020]

There is no back story why the phone works or why the old lady is a ghost or whatever. They could of easily just show us that she was a witch or something. So there is magic phone and the ghost old lady that shows your past somehow and torments and kill you. ok? The best part was probably the new kid didn't do anything or know anything but the old lady killed him too? 1 star for visuals and 1 star for acting.

Shocked

[seneen · 3/10 · 24 October 2020]

Really I was very choked with the story... how Lin shaye make this movie and this bad story I was expected more better film At least you can't know what they want to say Or what the director message

Decent

[Abdulxoxo · 6/10 · 6 January 2021]

They story follows a group of four friends who torment an elderly woman because they suspected she's a witch. After her unexpected death, they're invited to her home and are forced to call a phone that's installed in her casket.

This movie manages to keep me glued to my seat half way through, The story has an interesting set-up and the conflict isn't that bad. The characters are introduced well even tho they aren't much developed. The scene where Tobin Bell's character explain to them what to do and how to do it, is handled very well, when he says "let's play a game" it felt like Saw all over again. But the film loses its status of excellence when the whole "calling" thing started. It resorts to typical horror elements like jump scares and fiddling with the character's mind, and the ending fails to make an impact. However, the film's cinematography is great with fantastic camera work and lighting that adds to the ominous feel in conjunction with Samuel Joseph's score with its piano and synths that add to the creepier moments. The costumes and hairstyle are fitting to the time period. The performances are good with the best coming from Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell, the actors that played the four main characters are decent as well.

Hard Pass

[joeymignano · 1/10 · 4 November 2020]

This movie is one of the worst directed, worst written, and worst acted horror movies I have seen in awhile. Just skip it and find anything else. The ending, if u can even call it that, makes no sense, basically the movie just stops.

It's really not that bad. I don't get the negative reviews?

[marplelaura · 8/10 · 24 August 2021]

We really liked it! My cousin & I are really big horror fiends and we actually enjoyed this one. I don't get all the bad ratings. It was not boring in the slightest to us.

See you on the other side

[nogodnomasters · 7/10 · 1 November 2020]

Christopher Michael Mitchell (Chester Rushing ) is the new kid in town. The real reason for the move is revealed late. Chris meets Tonya (Erin Sanders ) who he follows around because he is a male and she is not. They also hang out with Zack (Mike Manning) and his side kick brother Brett (Sloane Morgan Siegel ). They believe Edith Cranston (Lin Shaye) was responsible for the death of Tonya's sister a few years ago. They decide to throw stones at her house, again. Chris goes with but does not play. Lin Shaye kills herself and leaves the four kids money. All they have to do is stay on the phone for a minute, a phone at the end of a dimly lit hall.

The film takes place in 1987 because cell phones have screwed up the genre. I liked the horror aspect of it. While not unique, it was freshly done and with Lin Shaye. I could not imagine a person more fitting for the role. I need her on my answering machine.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

Watchable

[mjsreg · 5/10 · 31 October 2020]

This film isn't too bad. It is not a horror gore fest, and it is more about the story of the characters than anything else.

The acting is good, and the production (a la 1980s theme) is well executed.

The ending is a bit weak, otherwise it is a reasonable watch.

It's Like Watching Paint Dry

[patrickkeown · 1/10 · 31 October 2020]

This movie couldn't be less interesting. It's so painful to sit through. I'm so glad I watched it at home and not in a theater.

Horrible Directing and garbage story

[hossein-motlagh · 1/10 · 31 October 2020]

Had to write a review for this, plz dont waste your time on this, yes the dude from Saw as is the creepy old lady from Insidious but thats just about it. The story sucks, direction is horrible and you will be stuck in meaningless moments which last for 10 minutes.

Do yourself a favor and avoid it.

Not really scared and pointless screamings

[Didier-Dirk-Brackx · 2/10 · 2 November 2020]

I watched it with my grown up kids (16 and 17 years) and after 30' I thought it will go in the good direction, but not. After the kids went into the house, to make the call it became worse. Bad acting, a lot of screaming, you see what the father of the 2 boys did to them when they were little but further no explanation, did they got to the back door or not. Zombie stuff.... The older sister killed her young sister but nobody find her body by just throwing it from the bridge ?? Nor her bike. Not worth to watch it !!

Meh. Spoilers ahead.

[celistar99 · 3/10 · 25 April 2023]

My biggest issue with this movie was that Christopher really didn't do anything wrong yet still suffered the fate of the others who tortured Edith. And even then, the others were tricked by Tonya who convinced the badly abused brothers that her sister had been killed by Edith. So like these brothers who were beaten by their father but were told that Edith was responsible for the death of Tonya's sister deserved to be tortured to death for believing Tonya? Could they not have just been shown the truth? It was a weird cluster**** that only redeemed itself by the senior cast of Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell.