At the time of this writing, this film has no critic reviews, no user reviews and only 15 votes on IMDb. Basically, no one has seen this. I dug around and tried to find something about it online, but the only thing I found out was that it used to have a different title of "Callers," which is obviously a much better title than "Ghost Phone: Phone Calls from the Dead". The current title sounds like "Death Bed: the bed that eats people." The current title combined with the atrocious cover art would scare any reasonable viewer away. But since I was already binging on B movies on Amazon Prime I figured I'd give it a shot and I was pleasantly surprised.
This film closely follows Will Pierce (Nelson Franklin) whose girlfriend (Melissa Ordway) dies in a car accident and immediately begins calling him on a red cell phone, even though she's already deceased. The narrative has dueling time-lines as it is told retrospectively from a mental hospital, so we watch the events unfold as they're told by Will to a psychiatrist, waiting to figure out how he was finally apprehended for his "insanity."
Shortly after hearing from his girlfriend, Will begins hearing from other people in his life that have died, including his father and a secretary at his father's office. All of the dead people contacting Will have a favor to ask, usually involving him doing something that might help bring them closure, but which also makes Will look completely insane. Not to mention that a couple of the people died under suspicious circumstances and eventually Will ends up in the middle of a criminal investigation for having information about their deaths that no one else has.
It's an interesting film because it rides a fine line between a supernatural mystery and the ramblings of man having a psychotic break after the death of his girlfriend. It's not convincingly one or the other so it keeps you guessing until the end. It has a light tone and rather poppy, slightly annoying soundtrack. I wondered if it would've been better had it been given a more serious, dramatic treatment while still retaining some of the comedic undertones.
The acting is generally competent, but make no mistake, this is a low-budget movie. Technically, the movie is a pass. The definition and lighting quality are certainly passable but the audio leaves something to be desired. While it's not often muffled or too uneven, there's a lot of buzz and irregular room tone that needed some cleaning up.
I'll warn you about one brief, but terrible scene in the movie that felt completely out of place. The entire movie stays closely with our protagonist Will's perspective, until randomly, near the end we for some reason see the psychiatrist at home taking a pregnancy test and trying to talk to her mother on the cell phone. It was awful and unnecessary. I suppose they wanted to convince us of her sympathy for him, but It was simply weird and clunky. However, don't let that scare you off, it's only an odd minute in an otherwise even movie.
I'd recommend it. It zips along nicely, it's funny and dramatic, and the writing is a huge cut above what you would normally get from one of these low-budget indie movies.
This film closely follows Will Pierce (Nelson Franklin) whose girlfriend (Melissa Ordway) dies in a car accident and immediately begins calling him on a red cell phone, even though she's already deceased. The narrative has dueling time-lines as it is told retrospectively from a mental hospital, so we watch the events unfold as they're told by Will to a psychiatrist, waiting to figure out how he was finally apprehended for his "insanity."
Shortly after hearing from his girlfriend, Will begins hearing from other people in his life that have died, including his father and a secretary at his father's office. All of the dead people contacting Will have a favor to ask, usually involving him doing something that might help bring them closure, but which also makes Will look completely insane. Not to mention that a couple of the people died under suspicious circumstances and eventually Will ends up in the middle of a criminal investigation for having information about their deaths that no one else has.
It's an interesting film because it rides a fine line between a supernatural mystery and the ramblings of man having a psychotic break after the death of his girlfriend. It's not convincingly one or the other so it keeps you guessing until the end. It has a light tone and rather poppy, slightly annoying soundtrack. I wondered if it would've been better had it been given a more serious, dramatic treatment while still retaining some of the comedic undertones.
The acting is generally competent, but make no mistake, this is a low-budget movie. Technically, the movie is a pass. The definition and lighting quality are certainly passable but the audio leaves something to be desired. While it's not often muffled or too uneven, there's a lot of buzz and irregular room tone that needed some cleaning up.
I'll warn you about one brief, but terrible scene in the movie that felt completely out of place. The entire movie stays closely with our protagonist Will's perspective, until randomly, near the end we for some reason see the psychiatrist at home taking a pregnancy test and trying to talk to her mother on the cell phone. It was awful and unnecessary. I suppose they wanted to convince us of her sympathy for him, but It was simply weird and clunky. However, don't let that scare you off, it's only an odd minute in an otherwise even movie.
I'd recommend it. It zips along nicely, it's funny and dramatic, and the writing is a huge cut above what you would normally get from one of these low-budget indie movies.
