When Evil Calls (2008)

Waste of time

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

An evil djinn in clownface offers a geeky, mistreated teenager a chance to be popular, and in accepting his offer, serves as a catalyst for a series of gruesome events plaguing her school as her fellow students suffer the wrath of making their unfortunate wish, via phone text. That's how the djinn captivates his intended victims, send them a text offering a wish, the kids returning what they yearn for, and paying the consequences. Two detectives(including Dominique Pinon of "City of Lost Children" fame as a slovenly, disheveled alcoholic whose methods of interrogation aren't exactly orthodox)must uncover the reason behind the unusual body count building at the school under more than suspicious circumstances.The version I watched was only about 60 minutes so it was arranged in episodic form without Sean Pertwee's narration. Each episode features some teenager going through their own personal ordeal, wishing for something out of anger, off-the-cuff, a crisis of an emotional nature, or just because they want others to see them differently. The dark humorous nature of the movie takes no prisoners as the djinn preys on kids with hang-ups and other troubles, vulnerable and desperate.Such selected targets include:An oriental girl considered a "freak", the poor kid with acne, the fat boy whose eating habits are a bit off-putting, the nerd who so desperately desires to kiss the resident babe, the teen who wants X-ray vision to watch the female basketball team practicing naked, the struggling student fearing to fail his test who yearns to "see into the smart one's brain" getting just that, the facially scarred girl who wants to be beautiful, an anorexic who wishes to lose a "little weight", the closet lesbian who wants to look "good enough to eat" for a girl she carries a torch for, the guy who pines for his current girlfriend to have big breasts getting more than he bargained for, another wishing for the return of his step father who passed away the previous year, a girl wishing she was "hot", a scorned teen who, after catching her boyfriend getting an oral going-over by the school's most desirable chick, wishing to never see him again, a girl wishing that people could see how beautiful she was "on the inside", an obnoxious trouble-making lesbian(you'll notice that she is always bullying and ridiculing many of the victims throughout)wishes to be with her lover until they die, etc.With plenty of gore, and applied computer graphics for the more difficult effects(..such as the burning of a face, eyeballs showing up in places they don't belong, an arm gushing blood after the hand was taken off in a garbage disposal and so on). I will say that some of the practical effects are impressive enough to leave you rather taken aback(or laughing depending on you sense of humor). Most of the individual stories last mere minutes before the characters are dispatched in sickening ways. Such potent violence includes a victim falling eyes-first on scissors, a victim crushed into a wall by a van, cannibalism, a suicide involving pencils up a victim's nostrils, a car leaving a victim's stomach open and her intestines exposed, etc. The whole "mobile phone horror series" idea shows in the movie sense the length of the scenarios, and victims' various outcomes based on those wishes which sealed their fates, aren't very long. I liked this more than others it seems because I thought the dark heart of the filmmakers was in the right place, and there's a sick sense of humor involved that I found rather entertaining. Definitely low budget with some effects less than satisfactory. Some lesbianism which I thought was nice, mostly kissing, and a surprising amount of nudity(mostly leering, lurid camera shots up the legs of the girls, exploiting the short skirts the private British school seems unaffected by).

It really made me laugh to see so many people seemed to miss the point entirely with this one. Complaining about the special effects, predictability and puns is like... I don't know, like complaining about clichés in an old romance film.The number one thing to remember when you watch this on DVD is that it was intended to be seen on a tiny little cell phone screen. The directing and camera work are very careful in this regard, and I can really see actually sitting down and watching this on some mobile device. The second thing to remember is that this is not ever, at all, never never never supposed to be taken seriously. Ever. It hearkens back to the awful/amazing horror films of the '80s in its gratuitous gore and nudity. You know, the ones you sit down to now and laugh and play drinking games with. Image what you love about those movies packed into super-mini segments. The only difference here is that those were only slightly self-aware, while When Evil Calls is balls-out mocking of itself. The campy CGI and awesomely bad death scenes only add to this effect.The predictability factor is only an issue if you have no love for these silly films. Which I guess is possible. (But come on.) It is beyond entertaining to see (for example) a girl wish to never see her ex boyfriend's face again and then, oh my, is that an upturned pair of scissors in her path? Why, I think it is! The eye hanging out of the chick's socket is like an indulgence after an intense tease.And how. How can you not love these actors. Sean Pertwee as the janitor serves as a modern, angry, drunk Crypt Keeper, addressing the audience as if he is telling the story. As the series progresses, he gets drunker, and actually more endearing, in a bitter kind of way. And my god, Chris Barrie still has it completely. His expressions alone had me laughing out loud shamelessly. So good.In closing: You really have to see this one. Don't go into it thinking you're going to see a serious flick, don't you dare. This is horror comedy at its best, with blood, guts, boobs, lesbians and an amazing cast. What more could you even ask for?

Jennifer Lim stars in this flat-liner of a horror, cast too, in films such as Rogue Trader (1999), Hostel (2005) and 27 Dresses (2008) she, amongst others, is seen parading around school in what seems to be, literally, the bear essentials. Put together by Gatlin Pictures (Darkhunters (2004) and Forest of the Damned (2005), to date), Pure Grass Films (Beyond the Rave (2008 video)) and directed by Johannes Roberts, this was first released as a mini-series that was broadcast originally via mobile (cell) phones, and then ultimately released on 18 Certificate DVD with full extended footage.Now in its entirety, and with stars as Dominique Pinon (Diva (1981), Delicatessen (1991), The City of Lost Children (1995), Alien: Resurrection (1997) and Amélie (2001)), Sean "Dog Soldiers" Pertwee and Chris Barrie (Red Dwarf's Arnold Rimmer) one would have hoped for a great film in tow, but alas, no. We can certainly see the target audience here, with the main attraction being these older teens to early twenty something's carrying their uniforms to maximum effect, with so little interest in production value, script and imagination, what merit is there for anything else? A bigger budget may have helped, after all and in all fairness, this is the two fledgling Production companies at their genesis, with hope and hindsight it may improve and no doubt, the overall experience for everyone may not have been a total waste.The narrative isn't that new, a nondescript girl (Jennifer Lim) wishes only to be more popular in school, her wish comes true via an extremely evil looking clown (not a bad effort too) who has the ability to transform peoples wishes into reality via mobile phones, hence, when evil calls. This, of course, does not go according to plan; the butterfly effect has some pretty nasty (budget allowing) consequences.The main cast here seems just as hyped, as too the short lengths of the girls skirts, then used to little effect but to add a name to the credits, then again, with only a running time of 75 minutes, it had to go one way or the other, and tails, the boys lost. It does have its moments, both of humour and fright, but they seem too dry, too fleeting and too far apart. Dominique Pinon's screen time here is tantamount to scandalous and Sean Pertwee's straight out of the rulebook script looked more inarticulate and uninspiring to say the least.We know, or should have more sense to see, that this is more than straight-to-video; this is film-making on-the-knock. We can only hope that, in time, the two companies involved and their future projects will make a handsome return. If this were not to be the case, then the unfortunate evil Clown should stay behind after school and write out a hundred times: This tried its best, but it just wasn't good enough.

Nerdy girl Samantha (Jennifer Lim) receives a text message from an evil clown saying she has won one wish if she forwards the message to two of her friends. She wishes she was popular, and immediately she becomes the most popular girl in school.But, as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for...Soon students at the school receive the message, ending in catastrophic (and sometimes humorous) outcomes. Samantha realizes the only way to stop this epidemic is to take back her wish...but does she want to go back to being an unseen nerd? This movie was actually somewhat entertaining to me. I love how they took the idea of those stupid messages we all get ("think about your lost love and send this message to 3 friends, if you do they'll come back to you, if you don't, you'll never see him/her again" for example).I also appreciated, even though it was a low-budget film, that they mixed in humor with horror. Like one kid wishes he had X-ray vision to see the girls playing basketball, and then he's sent to the principal's office, where he continues his X-ray vision, and then his really obese father comes, and he just screams the whole time. It's hilarious! It's a good film to see for the humor, but don't take it too seriously be- Oh, I got a text message..."Congratulations, you have won one wish!" Hmm...No thanks.