The caller

Year of release : 2011

Run time : 1h31m

Genre : Thriller / Mystery / Horror

Cast : Rachelle Lefevre, Stephen Moyer, Luis Guzman

Mary is a woman who is going through a divorce, as her abusive and controlling husband doesn’t want to give her the divorce. She’s got a restraining order against him, but he keeps on coming to her new place.

She moved into an apartment with their dog and her wood insect. She is taking night classes of Colloquial French.

The first time she goes to classes, she ends up in the wrong classroom, and has a nice flirtatious moment with the teacher who notices she’s the only woman there, and probably got lost.

One night, leaving the French classes she sees her ex husband in her car, so she runs inside, and asks the same teacher for help. When they go to her car her husband is gone, and they end up having dinner at his parents’ restaurant.

After John takes her home, she finds her still-husband, for he won’t sign the divorce papers, in her house. Luckily, John forgot his jacket on her shoulders, and comes back, making her ex leave.

From the moment she moved in, she starts receiving calls from a woman who wants to talk to Bobby. At first the woman hangs up, but then she starts to ask her what’s her name. She tells her she thinks she’s one of her man, Bobby’s women, as Bobby cheats on her a lot, and that’s Bobby’s place. Mary tells her repeatedly, there’s no Bobby there, she just moved in, and from their conversations, she realizes the woman calling is from 1979, as she mentions he came back from the Vietnam war!

Mary finds herself say to Rose that maybe she should have just gotten rid of her stalking husband, and when Rose calls again, she tells her she k1lled Bobby. Mary gets scared and asks her never to call again.

In the meantime, in her pantry, a brick wall appeared, and Mary realizes that’s where Bobby is buried.

For a while she turns off the landline, but she has no signal on her cell phone and needs to talk to the landlord to repair the air conditioning, and Rose, the woman, calls again.

Mary asks George, a neighbour, about Rose, and he eventually tells her she was a sad, lonely woman who ended up k1lling herself. When talking to her, Mary lies to Rose she saw her in the mental hospital, without realizing she doesn’t know how this woman looks like and she could ask her about such things.

She starts dating John, and tells him about all this, and he actually believes her, and tells her about time, and how she’s the only one remembering how things were before, because she’s connected to Rose.

Rose finds out who told Mary things about her, and George disappears.

Because John dared talking to Rose on the phone, telling her to leave Mary alone, he disappears too, and she finds out from his parents he disappeared when he was a kid, and they think him dead.

Rose finds Mary when she was a child, and befriends her and her mother, pouring hot oil on her younger version while talking to Mary on the phone, trying to control Mary into doing what she wants her to do, never leave the apartment, and answer her calls.

With scars from the burns on half of her body now, Mary is trying to get rid of Rose by sending her to a place which burnt down.

This only makes Rose even more angry and evil.

I personally enjoyed the movie. It was filmed in a brown color palette .

Mary already has problems with her husband who doesn’t want to give her the divorce and keeps on stalking her, entering her house all the time, scaring her. She lives in fear of leaving the house, and whenever she does, she walks around scared, afraid her ex might jump from somewhere to talk to her.

Then, she starts talking to this woman who becomes more and more unhinged, hurting her ,probably, more than her husband ever did, destroying her life.

She does get a red flag from her, when she starts screaming at her for telling her the Vietnam war was in 1979, but she keeps on talking to her, instead of hanging up, while the woman becomes more and more unhinged. She also makes the mistake of telling her her full name and John’s full name and Rose goes after them.

Instead of not talking to her, changing the number, she keeps on answering and giving her information about herself.

After Rose tells her she found her and her mother in 1979, she starts seeing the same woman in all the pictures she took with her mother, meaning she got another stalker.

Rose seems like a parasite who latches on to her, not having anything better to do in her life. She is evil, hurting this woman she’s never met for the most ridiculous things! It’s like she gave her a purpose to live, to hurt her! It’s like she took all her anger on her. It’s even worse that the things she does, she does to kids!

She doesn’t appear in person until the end of the movie when it’s for a few seconds.

The acting was good from everyone involved. Rachelle Lefevre was amazing.

Rose is just a voice on the phone, and the way she acts / talks reminds me of the old voice actors playing cartoon characters in animations like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.

The soundtrack, composed by UNKLE, was beautiful, it merged with the visuals creating a perfect soundtrack to Mary’s life.

The visual effects were good.

The movie was filmed in Puerto Rico, having its premiere in the city too.

The movie has a 2020 South-Korean remake titled “The call”.

You can watch the full movie for free on the Ok.Ru platform in English, or dubbed in Russian or Spanish.

Rating : Worth a watch !