Based on Takashi Miike's enjoyably daft Japanese horror movie about a supernatural curse that propagates itself through mobile phone technology, this abysmal Hollywood remake misdials every scare. Uprooting the action to the US, French director Eric Valette (who previously shot the far superior chiller Malefique) struggles to translate J-horror claustrophobia into the English language, with a cast of pretty but wooden actors led by Shannyn Sossamon. She plays a college student whose friends are being murdered in strange circumstances after they receive voicemails of their own impending death throes. When not lazily rehashing Miike's jittery set pieces (including a videotaped exorcism that goes horribly wrong), Valette deploys scares over-familiar from The Ring and The Grudge to minimal effect. Edward Burns lurks in the corners as a harried cop searching for clues, while the usually dependable Ray Wise rather fittingly phones in his bored performance as a TV exorcist. If only one could reverse the charges.

Several people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves -- messages which include the date, time, and some of the details of their deaths.