A Dead Calling (2006)

hyped garbage

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Blistering performances.

In New York, the journalist Rachel Beckwith (Alexandra Holden) is attacked by a burglar and her fiancé Brian (Shawn Hoffman) is murdered trying to defend her. Rachel returns to her hometown Fillmore to recover in the house of her parents. Six months later, she is hired by Stephen Javitz (John Burke) to work in the local television and her first assignment is to cover the architecture of the mansions in Fillmore. Rachel is attracted to the abandoned house of Dr. Frank Sullivan (Tim Oman) and when she breaks in the house, she sees the murder of Mrs. Sullivan (Caia Coley) by Dr. Frank. She returns to the house later and also sees the murder of the journalist of the Fillmore Union Tribune Arnold "Arnie" Howard (Mike Korich). When she calls the police, she learns that Arnie died many years ago. Soon Rachel is contacted by the ghost of Mrs. Sullivan that asks her to help her family and her to find peace. Rachel decides to investigate her connection with the Sullivan's family and their house. "A Dead Calling" is an awful combination of a lame story with bad acting. It is unbelievable how a writer can create such poor and incoherent story. The way Rachel treats her parents when the ghost of Mrs. Sullivan talks to her is unpleasant and absurd. Rachel does not grieve George, who is simply forgotten in the happy end. The exterior of the haunted house is a beautiful white mansion. The snoopy neighbor is capable to see Rachel snooping around in the house, but does not hear shots in the end. The actor that performs Deputy Murken is terrible. Dr. Sullivan kills a deputy, a man on the road and the police do not chase him. Do not waste your time watching this garbage. My vote is two.Title (Brazil): "O Chamado da Morte" ("The Dead Calling")

I can't chalk up one of my best attributes as being 'Sherlock Holmes' when it comes to predicting the outcome of most story lines, but about 30 minutes into this snail-paced "thriller" it was so obvious that even Anne Coulter could've figured it out.Someone wrote "not that bad"... Not that bad as ???? Uninspired plot line, jaded acting, not to mention John Burke as one of the leads. Hey, I liked him on 'FX - The Morning Show' and some other things along the way, but a lead he is not.Anyway, there may be some spoilers ahead... just thought I'd warn you...A young and upcoming reporter in NYC returns home late one night and is awakened by noises coming from the living room. She stumbles in the dark and comes face-to-face with a masked intruder. Anyway, her fiancée and the intruder get into a struggle, the fiancée is killed, the intruder escapes, etc., etc. Jump ahead six months... she has moved back in with her parents, gets a job at the local t.v. station doing a story on architectural details of local houses, especially one very ominous, abandoned home with a gory past. It seems the former resident, Dr. Frank Sullivan murdered his wife and daughters (except for one... see where this is going?) and is now on the loose.OK... nuff said... If you haven't figured this one out by now, then you probably are someone easily entertained by arena football or cock fighting. Save the $4.00 rental fees and choose something else, like American Pie 6 or the yet-to-be-released Bio pic about Milli Vanilli (yes, it is actually in the works at the time of this review).

This is by far the worst horror movie,if not the worst movie i ever seen in all my life!No suspense,not even horror.not even a plot.Very bad acting too.The story(if we can call it like that)is very predictable.Conclusion:if you are a true fan of horror/suspense movies you'll be surprise with yourself if you stand watching more than 30 minutes of it.But if you are a fan of bad comedy/fantasy well ... you might like the movie.By the way the movie's name, "A dead calling",don't realize why it call's like that:It makes you believe that a phone is in the middle but...no.And the house?It's a beautiful house,too beautiful too be haunted. Oh well ,this is only a opinion of a lover horror films.

OK, I just saw the movie and I didn't think that it was THAT bad. The other reviewer is correct the acting sucks, big time, but if you actually give it a chance and try to get into the character then it's not so bad. I would not recommend buying or renting it but if you're stuck somewhere out in the middle of nowhere with cable and the movie just so happens to come on, it might be OK. Yes the escaped convict plot is alright, way too played out. There are actually kind of two "twists". The first is pretty obvious from the get-go. The other surprised me a little but it did not improve the movie what-so-ever. I think that the characters the were in The Devil's Rejects, should stay there. There is "supposed" to be a tender moment between the parents and the daughter and I could only laugh. Now if "tender" meant "awkward" then I could understand. All in all this was a pretty bad movie. Don't waste ANY money on this or you'll be sorry.