JP Nunez
I’m always on the lookout for cool new ideas in the horror world, so when I first heard about Cellphone, I was intrigued. Sure, the concept of people seeing sinister and potentially supernatural images on a phone isn’t new, but I don’t remember ever watching an entire movie about it. So I was curious to see how this one would turn out. I thought the film had potential, and I was excited to see what technological thrills it had in store.
Cellphone was directed by Luke Sommer, and it stars Whitney Rose Pynn, Justin Malik Jackson, Jared Noble, and Malcolm McDowell. The movie follows a young woman named Wynne who recently lost her fiancé in a car crash, and sometime after his tragic death, she agrees to housesit for an old man while he’s away. It seems like this just might be the change of scenery she needs to help her heal, but soon after she arrives, she begins to experience strange, potentially supernatural phenomena.
For example, she has intense visions of her fiancé, and she tells a friend of hers that it feels like he’s really there even though she knows he’s not. On top of that, she also sees really creepy images on her cell phone, including one of her own murdered corpse. She eventually discovers that these images are a sneak peek into her future, so she has to figure out a way to stop that future from coming to pass before it’s too late.
On paper, Cellphone may sound like an interesting, almost The Ring-esque story, but unfortunately, the execution is sorely lacking. Let’s start with the horror. The first time Wynne sees something odd on her phone, it’s actually pretty creepy. She’s looking at a painting on the wall through the phone’s camera, and the image moves a bit, but the real painting stays perfectly still.
It’s not much, but it’s the kind of low-key, almost subtle horror I love to see in the first act of a scary movie. It lays the foundation for an awesome buildup that can lead to an utterly hair-raising finale, but unfortunately, this is pretty much the high point of the film. Granted, there are a few decent moments here and there throughout the rest of its runtime, but by and large, the other strange images Wynne sees on her phone are lackluster at best.
The film just goes too hard too fast. In my opinion, horror usually works best when it starts small and then slowly ups the ante (like, say, Paranormal Activity), but Cellphone forgets that golden rule. Instead, it jumps to dead bodies pretty quickly, and that’s just not scary.
Next, let’s talk about the characters. Aside from Wynne, the only person who has any significant role in Cellphone is a guy named Chris. He just randomly shows up by her house one day, and he starts talking and acting like they’re old friends. Surprisingly, Wynne seems to have no problem being best buddies with this total stranger, and the next time they see each other, she lets him drive her to the supermarket after he shows up randomly at her house again.
It’s an odd situation, and I just didn’t buy it. I have trouble believing that a woman grieving the recent loss of her fiance is going to be that open and trusting with a man she knows nothing about, so this relationship is the kind of thing that would only happen in a movie. And I don’t mean that in a good way. It just feels fabricated, so every time Chris stepped on screen, I couldn’t help but cringe a bit.
That being said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the actors playing these characters are actually quite good. Whitney Rose Pynn is totally believable as Wynne, and Justin Malik Jackson’s performance as Chris would be really charming if Chris’s dynamic with Wynne wasn’t so weird. In fact, I’d even say these two actors are the best thing about Cellphone, so it’s a real shame that their characters’ relationship is so off-putting.
Along similar lines, I also thought Wynne’s visions of her fiancé felt out of place. Sure, I understand that the woman is still in mourning, so on that level, these visions make sense. However, they don’t really have anything to do with the story Cellphone is telling. In fact, you could take them out of the movie entirely, and the story would remain essentially the same.
If anything, it feels like you’re watching two different movies smushed into one. On the one hand, you have the story of Wynne battling the evil force infecting her phone, and on the other hand, you have the tale of Wynne grieving her fiancé’s death and struggling to move on with her life. Now, you’d think those two stories would intersect at some point (for example, maybe the fiancé’s ghost would help defeat the evil entity), but they never do. They just run on parallel tracks the entire time, so Cellphone ends up feeling a bit disjointed.
So at the end of the day, I’m sad to report that I wouldn’t recommend this film. It has some strong acting and a couple of good scares, but on the whole, the bad in here far outweighs the good. The weak horror, the strange dynamic between Wynne and Chris, and the disjointed storytelling just do it in, so if you’re on the prowl for something good to watch, I suggest you look elsewhere.
Cellphone hit VOD on February 13.
