Uh Sookie. It these words do it for you then you might want to give this a watch. Yes, Stephen Moyer of True Blood stars, and is only marginally less vampirey.  He is joined by fellow bloodsucker ­Rachelle Lefevre, aka Twilight’s Victoria, who plays traumatised divorcee Mary. But there’s no neck-on-neck action here and, instead of the sun, a rotary telephone is their nemesis. 

Mary has split from her abusive husband (played with suitable force by Ed Quinn) and has moved into an icky apartment with an icky secret. With already plenty on her plate, she starts getting odd phone calls from an old lady. 

Part of the fun of this film is simply trying to guess what’s going on – is it her ex trying to drive her mad? Is it something to do with her new mystery man? Or is she actually going round the bend?

Director Matthew Parkhill does a good job of maintaining tension and suspense given that most of this film is just two people talking on the phone. Lefevre is excellent – believable, likeable and fascinating to watch. And Moyer, as a slightly rumpled maths teacher, is almost as dishy and chivalrous as TB’s Bill, also giving us ‘How Time Works For Dummies.’ 

But some scenes go on too long or could have been cut. The film was based on a short BBC TV drama and at times you can feel it being dragged from this condensed state to feature film length – like the same amount of jam being scraped over a bigger bit of toast. The caller herself – played by Lorna Raver of Drag Me To Hell fame – overdoes it a bit vocally, sounding like The Wicked Witch Of The West’s cacklier old sister, but the strange relationship that builds between Mary and her is oddly believable. 

All in all this is a solid film – though the final shot really should have been cut, as it isn’t necessary. But the Caller’s central idea is interesting and it’s nice to see a horror with some of its brains still functioning beneath the rotting flesh.

DVD Extras

Just the usual stuff – deleted scenes, director’s commentary, The Making Of The Caller, which includes a decent interview with the writer, and some interesting alternative endings. But no chats with the stars.