Shannyn Sossamon plays Beth Raymond – a child psychologist in training.

After the mysterious death of one of her fellow students, Beth becomes embroiled in a dangerous, supernatural mystery when her friends start to die in strange ways.

But not only do they know that are going to die; they know exactly when thanks to voice mail messages on their mobile phones left bytheir future selves.

With the help of cop Jack Andrews (Edward Burns), Beth has to find out who is murdering from beyond the grave, before her phone starts to ring as well.

A French director leading an American cast remaking a Japanese horror may sound a little problematic, and unfortunately the film follows suit.

While the director of the original Japanese film Chakushin Ari, Takashi Miike, is adept at creating gut-churning dread and executing

tense horror moments as ably as their dramatic build up, One Missed Call's Eric Valette cannot seem to provide the same levels of suspense as his predecessor.

Badly edited sequences fail to get the most out of the chilling source material, with even the most basic 'jump' moments mostly missing their mark.

This isn't to say he doesn't try though, with old school make-up effects and atmospheric set pieces helping to salvage what could have easily been a total wreck of a film.

But the fault cannot lay solely at the director's feet.

Andrew Klavan's screenplay rolls out with super simplistic structure, leading the audience like a child by the hand with over used concepts and just embarrassing dialogue.

Not really suited to a cinematic debut, the film would feel more at home if a group of teenagers or twenty-somethings fancied a disposablefright flick to idly watch on a Friday night over pizza.

Despite the clever premise of horror-ising an everyday device like the phone (much in the same way The Ring did for videotapes), this clumsy offering is more comic than creepy.

4/10 - Cold-calling window salesmen are scarier than this sub-par Japanese copy.