Thousands of horror films are released every year with some being a hit and some being a miss, the latter is where the new film Last Radio Call falls.
In the film, a cop goes missing during a call at an abandoned hospital. One year after his disappearance, his wife decides to make a documentary and seek answers to what happened. This is where my first “What the hell?” moment happens. A year, she waits a year? If it was my husband, my ass would be hunting for him within the first 24 hours. But anyway. After a year, she goes about interviewing his boss and partner but no one will talk to her. Finally, she actually goes to the hospital where things go from bad to worse for the woman.
A lot of the movie is just this woman talking to a camera in her room. In all, there may have been fifteen minutes of real action and the rest is just this woman going through emotions, which are pretty poorly acted.
Last Radio Call is a full-on found-footage film. While it is fitting for most of the story, the shaky camera work left me about to lose my lunch. I will say the bodycam footage was a great choice in the scenes with the cops though.
The dialogue comes across stiff like they are just reading from a script instead of being in the moment. And who is the camera guy? If he was meant to be a character, then why isn’t participating? He’s just toting the camera. What is wrong with these characters? People are pulling guns, there’s spooky stuff going on and they’re just standing there. Run, dumb ass. Speaking of characters, the main character, played by Sarah Froelich, lacks depth. She only exists to further the story. We know nothing of her except, she’s a little off, and her husband is MIA. Instead of coming off like a worried wife, it seems to me like she just comes off as a little crazy. She’s just not relatable.
I’m just going to be blunt and cut to the chase, The Last Call is not a great film. There are a couple of good scenes but that’s not enough to redeem the film. It suffers from bad acting, long lulls in the action, inconsistency, and many questionable choices by the characters (ex waiting a year).
I will say this, there were a few good moments where things come together leaving me with the thought that there is a lot of potential for director Isaac Rodriguez.
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