Close Calls

Close Calls is one of those films that sort of defies description. Is it a home invasion movie? Sort of. A slasher? It has its slasher-y moments. A piece of an Italian horror inspired fever dream? Definitely! It's a shame that, with so many strong influences, Close Calls never quite gels as a cohesive whole, but we'll get to that later.

Close Calls is about a young woman who's pretty bummed to be left to care for her ailing grandmother who lives in her and her father's attic while her father goes off on a date with her royal witch of a stepmother-to-be. Feeling bored, our heroine takes some drugs and things start getting a bit out of hand. Is she imagining that her grandmother lives on a soiled mattress in a dusty attic? Are those phone calls she keeps getting really pose any major threat?

Writer/director Richard Stringham has a gorgeous visual style, wild ideas, and a flair for finding beauty in the macabre, but his script is messy and suffers from overlength. Honestly, the entire subplot with the grandmother could have been removed altogether since it's never quite clear if the grandmother really does live in a disgusting old attic or if that's just something the heroine is imagining. It's interesting by itself, but it doesn't end up adding much in the end. The evil stepmother has an awful English accent (I'll feel like an idiot if she's actually English, but it sounded phony to my ears and could have been avoided altogether) and some of her moments between her and the father could have been trimmed a bit.

Leading actress, Jordan Phillips, is pretty good, though, and she'd better be since she's in just about every frame of the film. It did seem like a strange and distracting choice to have her in a bra and panties for the entire film, though. I kept wanting her to at least put on some pajamas before she catches cold.

Close Calls is definitely a movie you'll remember even if it's not quite a masterpiece (although, the cinematography is some of the best I've seen in an indie horror film in quite some time).

Don't get me wrong, I love the sight of a 20-year-old beauty with (very) big breasts and a slender bum parading around in her revealing underwear for two hours just as much as any healthy man. Maybe even more... I'll even admit the trailer full of images of the scantily dressed and voluptuous Jordan Phipps heavily influenced me purchasing the DVD of "Close Calls". But all this still doesn't make it acceptable that a girl's jiggling pink bra and tight blue panties should form the only memorable things in a horror/thriller that proudly refers to itself as a "neo-giallo".

Speaking of which, what the heck is a "neo-giallo" anyways? The back of the Blu-Ray exclaims that "Close Calls" is similar and living up to the finest work of Dario Argento. Is there someone out there who honestly thinks so? Just because your film features a crazy old witch in a surreal attic, it doesn't mean can compare to "Suspiria". And just because someone is pressing random keys on a synthesizer device, it doesn't mean your soundtrack must be interpreted as an homage to Claudio Simonetti/Goblin. This movie isn't a Giallo, it's not even a horror movie as far as I'm concerned.

Morgan is a rebellious teenager with issues. Her mother died, but her father is about to remarry a deranged woman who hates her. She experiments with pretty much every type of drugs she can get her hands on, and she's grounded for getting caught whilst doing naughty things with her doofus boyfriend. Morgan must stay at the house alone, and feed medication to her ailing grandmother, when she suddenly starts receiving menacing and perverted phone calls from an unknown psycho.

As you can tell, there are plenty of potentially great ideas in "Close Calls", but writer/director Richard Stringham doesn't elaborate any of them properly. The film cashes in on the popular trend of looking retro-80s, but doesn't have a soul or personality of its own. Phipps's performance is more than decent, but every other actor/actress in this film is atrocious to behold. As much as I keep hoping to encounter clever and imaginative new horror movies, the sad truth is that "Close Calls" is pretentious, boring, substantially void, and at least half an hour too long.

This low budget entry screamed horror film cliche at first and then as I continued watching I found myself pleasantly surprised. It becomes a smart and rather effective mind game sure some of the scenes could benefit from a larger budget but given what they had this is actually quite good not to mention lead actress Jordan Phipps is a fantastic actress who keeps the whole film moving forward.

A gorgeously photographed fever dream of a movie that unfortunately has too many ideas floating around and competing for the spotlight to do any of them justice. You have a teenage "bad girl" forced to stay home and care for her ailing grandmother while her father and wicked stepmother-to-be go out to dinner. She gets really high and things start getting progressively weirder as she receives mysterious phone calls and her grandmother turns into a grotesque monster.

Nothing is ever really explained and the grandmother seems to only be there to give the lead a reason to stay home. She doesn't figure into any of the main action at all and is only really good for a few interesting shot moments of surrealism.

There's some obvious talent in front of and behind the camera, but the script isn't as flawless as the visual elements and it can make Close Calls feel a bit like a chore to sit through during certain moments, but when it comes to life, it can be really interesting. At least the filmmakers were going for something different and it's not another boring slasher movie we've seen a trillion times.

"Close Calls" is an entertaining, if a bit long, little horror flick. The film stars Jordan Phipps as Morgan, a teenaged girl who has been grounded after her father caught her in an, ahem, "compromising position" with her boyfriend. Turns out that a year earlier, her mother died and her father is going out on another date with a woman named Brynn that Morgan hates. As he leaves, he reminds her that she needs to give Gramma her pills. Morgan whines and moans and curses and basically acts like a spoiled brat, and her father leaves for his evening. And then Morgan ends up having quite the night, to say the least.

While there is a lot of creepy goodness going on, "Close Calls" almost seems like they intended to make one movie and then changed their minds halfway through and made another one instead, but left all the footage from the first one in there. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but it gives the movie a surrealistic feel about it. In the first half of the film there are hints of the supernatural -- Gramma lives in some weird almost otherworldly part of the house, locked away with all sorts of supernatural hints about her, and Morgan's interactions with her are really unsettling. Also deeply unsettling is what happens during a visit from her boyfriend. Asi f that weren't enough, Morgan also gets some very weird and creepy phone calls. But most of that is seemingly dropped in the second half when the film moves to other events (which I won't spoil) that are not grounded in the supernatural but are, in many ways, even more disturbing.

At two hours and eight minutes, the film could definitely use some trimming. But it never really drags. Jordan Phipps is getting raves in many reviews for her performance in this film, and those raves are well deserved. It is a brave and complex performance. She spends a lot of time in skimpy outfits and is able to balance vulnerability, fear, and determination throughout. The rest of the cast also does well, and the directing and lighting is clean and professional. As is the case with many indie flicks, the sound could use some work (sometimes too soft and dialogue is spoken very quickly so hard to understand), but still pretty decent. Overall, the film packs a nice whallop and its virtues make it easy to overlook its flaws.

Overall, easy to recommend "Close Calls" as an solid way for horror movie fans to spend a couple of hours.