Director/Writer: Patrick Rea
Starring: Allan Kayser,
Jennifer Friend, Richard Zvosec
I feel like I’m treading on
dangerous ground being critical of a movie like “Next Caller”, a locally
produced short horror film that cannot hide it’s Christian-based ideals. I
don’t have anything against Christian filmmaking, but I find that like with
Christian-based music, it all too often abandons artistry to preach at its
audience.
The set up for “Next Caller”
is like something out of an episode of “Tales from the Crypt”. This intrigued
me. We meet a late night DJ, a sort of shock jock, who is being forced by his
producer to do a show on the supernatural. He takes callers with their own
personal ghost stories and has a psychic for a guest, who claims to talk with
both God and Satan. Sure enough, the DJ’s next callers are God and Satan.
Don’t get me wrong. I think
this premise could work, but it most certainly doesn’t here. First, let’s deal
with the jock. This guy is modeled after your typical Howard Stern type, and he
claims the same popularity of such a personality and complains that the
station’s other jocks are boring. Don’t radio station’s usually program their
most popular and most shocking talent during the commute times rather than in
the middle of the night? Nothing this guy says on the air really suggests this
guy is particularly shocking. He merely agrees with his callers with an air of
condescension. This does not make for great radio. I submit that the filmmakers
didn’t do their research to find out what these types of radio personalities
are really like. They settled for a stereotype that wasn’t particularly well
written.
There seems to be little
knowledge of how radio actually works. Instead we’re asked to accept some
imagined notion that you might get from listening to radio without really
engaging your mind's eye about what’s happening behind the scenes. Why does the
producer dress like a businessman, and why doesn’t he ever sit down? These guys
do this every day. They’re going to be a little more relaxed about it.
Lets get to the preaching.
Everything that is said to the jock is fairly obvious. There’s a great deal of
the “prove it to me” attitude coming from the jock. God calls and basically
says, “Here I am. Doesn’t that prove it?” Surely people who believe that the
easy way is rarely the right way can’t believe that this is the way to go about
making their point. Then, the devil calls and implies that the jock will not
live through the night, something the psychic has already suggested. Really?
Good people live and bad people die? Can the argument still be this elementary?
If that were true, there wouldn’t be any non-believers and the world would be a
much better place. You’ve got to do better than this to convert non-believers.
Finally, considering the
resolution of this story, I can only assume that it is the opinion of the
Christians that made this movie that the worm in a tequila bottle is one of the
most evil elements on this planet. The tequila worm is the ultimate instrument
of Satan. This exemplifies the filmmaker’s utter lack of imagination in making
this movie. Most likely, their message was more important to them than the
quality of the art. I know I’m being harsh, but the message can be the most
important element and not be the most obvious element. Crafting your message
into a relatable analogy is the way of art. This unfortunately is not art. It
is theology; and even as theology, it isn’t very persuasive.
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