Wow!
I'm not entirely sure if this series was borne of COVID or not, but what a great format and concept! It was bone chilling!I know that there are a lot of people complaining that this is no more than a radio play, but first of all, what was so bad about radio plays? For those with imagination, you can conjure up visuals in your mind far more horrifying than a filmmaker can. Let's not forget that War Of The Worlds created panic in the streets when it was first aired on radio.
Secondly, it's not just a radio play. The visuals are very subtle but they do a lot to tell you who is talking to who and without them, it would be confusing. You may not have realised but the visuals also subtly tell you what condition the callers are in, what environment they're in. That in and of itself was creepy AF. As the conversations progress, even though you can only hear, you can see that some of the callers are deteriorating, dying horribly. Others are in extreme distress. Some are cool and collected. It's really genius.
My one quibble is that I felt as though it should have had the *other* ending, leaving the series on a extremely disturbing note rather than how it did end. But, I'll say that at least there is room for season 2, which I fervently hope there will be.
I think this marks a new genre in film, one that can be used extremely effectively with intelligence and imagination. The horror genre has almost been ruined by ever increasing gore and the temptation to show the audience just that little bit more for shock value. There's only so many ways you can kill a person on screen. There's nowhere left for filmmakers to go. Except here, to the world of Calls, where all things are possible again. With the technology of today, the audio play format can be pushed as far as it can go. This has huge potential, was probably created in people's houses and for far less money than other productions.
We have almost lost the capacity to imagine and to visualise, taking for granted that everything we want is always right before our eyes. We've gotten lazy. But if done right, a clever filmmaker can make you scare the absolute crap out of yourself by doing something very like what was done with Calls.
score 9/10
akshunhiro 21 March 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6725741/15007
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