The Caller (2011) Review

Directed by: Matthew Parkhill
Written By: Sergio Casci
Starring: Rachelle Lefevre, Stephen Moyer, Lorna Raver
91 Minutes

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The Caller (2011)
The Caller (2011)

Mary is moving into a new apartment in Puerto Rico, and she’s helped by her new neighbor George. That night, she gets a wrong number caller who hangs up. Mary is in the process of getting a divorce, and her husband is a major creep. She gets another call the next morning from the same woman, who asks for Bobby, and then asks who Mary is. She meets a Friendly teacher at the local college, and then takes the subway home. When she gets home, the lady on the phone is there again, crying that Bobby told her he loves her. She’s also waiting for her son to get back from Vietnam…

The next day, the woman calls again, and she claims the date is September 4th 1979. She’s going to draw something on the wall behind the wallpaper, and Mary can find that and verify that she’s telling the truth. Somehow, the phone is getting calls from the past. They start to tell each other about their personal lives.

The lady says she killed her husband and locked him up forever, and Mary suddenly finds a bricked-up area where there wasn’t one earlier. The next night, she’s leaving school and finds her ex-husband hiding in the car, but when she gets the teacher to go out with her, there’s nothing but some trash in the car. When she gets home, the ex is in there waiting for her, and he threatens her, even though there’s a restraining order. The teacher, whose name is John, comes back and saves the day.

Later, the woman says she saw Mary and her mother, and then Mary looks at some old photo albums and finds a woman staring at them in one photo. The next day, she confronts George, who’s worked there forever. He remembers old Rose, and tells the story of how Rose killed herself with the phone cord. That didn’t happen in the past, because Mary is her new friend, giving her a reason to live. John gives a long explanation of time loops and altered timelines. John and Mary start getting closer, but the husband is still stalking them.

Mary gets nasty with Rose the next time she calls. Rose says to go dig up a thing she just buried in the yard. It turns out to be one of Rose’s own fingers. Rose says she knows who the “tattletale” is, and George vanishes. John doesn’t even remember George, but he should. Shortly after, John vanishes too, having died in 1979. Mary breaks down the brick wall in the kitchen and finds Bobby, George, and John’s bodies. The next time Rose calls, she’s with a little girl named Mary.

Can Mary stop Rose… in the past? Can anything good come from all this?

Commentary:

I liked this one. At no point did it go in the way I expected. The acting was good, and the surprises kept on coming. There’s not a lot of action, but the suspense continually builds to a point of desperation. It’s very well done.

Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2wgNC5p