I am so excited that you are reading this sentence after hopefully reading the Day 1 entry. It’s now Day 2 here at my ’31 Days of Halloween’ and I’ll be damned if I didn’t already find a winner. Many times this month, I will be watching movies I have never seen before, some I know nothing about. I am looking forward to this because I typically use October to watch old favorites. This year’s obsession theme will force me into new territory. The Caller is an example of one of those films. I stumbled upon it on Netflix, it sounded interesting, so I took a leap.

So where did I land? I face-planted smack in the middle of a movie with a wickedly fun twist on the stalking scenario as well as on my obsession theme. Remember how Lorna Raver was scary as hell as the milky-eyed gypsy woman of Drag Me to Hell? You see very little of her here but it’s worth it when the voice comes spitting through the phone, reminiscent of the widow from Creepshow’s They’re Creeping Up On You. Mary Kee (the very pretty Rachelle Lefevre) is freshly divorced from her bullying husband so she’s living alone. One day her phone rings and an older woman on the other end asks for someone who doesn’t live there, at least anymore. Through the course of several conversations, it is surmised that the woman is somehow calling from the past. The novelty of that is interesting to Mary for about one hot second before she begins to get creeped out by this onslaught of unwanted attention from a strange, clingy old woman. Rose begins to call incessantly begging for Mary’s friendship. Not only that but this woman, Rose, is very demanding of Mary’s time to the point of really nasty revenge tactics if she doesn’t get what she wants. And, to top it off, Mary is still being hounded by her hardheaded ex-husband. And she’s real pretty.

The surprising thing about The Caller is how simply it approaches subjects like causality. The hypothesis is not devoid of holes but, if any were, we’d be traveling through time right now. So while you could easily pull it apart at the plotholes, I found myself not wishing to do so. This is a fun little movie that flirts with bending the rules of time in what I find to be an original and thought- provoking manner. There are things you will find to be predictable but I’d be willing to bet something (don’t know what, I’ll come back to this part) that you’ll find at least one surprise. And Rachelle Lefevre sure is pretty.

Visually, you have seen this movie many times before. Attempts to manipulate atmosphere through the use of light are almost overpowering at times here. There are moments of green that kept taking me to Saw. I can’t argue that it’s striking, it’s just not to my liking, not for this scenario.

I am stunned to report that I am very pleased with my find. Perhaps there was buzz about this one that I somehow missed or don’t recall but, if you’ve never seen it, give it a shot. My Jason rating: 4/5