"Close Calls" is an entertaining, if a bit long, little horror flick. The film stars Jordan Phipps as Morgan, a teenaged girl who has been grounded after her father caught her in an, ahem, "compromising position" with her boyfriend. Turns out that a year earlier, her mother died and her father is going out on another date with a woman named Brynn that Morgan hates. As he leaves, he reminds her that she needs to give Gramma her pills. Morgan whines and moans and curses and basically acts like a spoiled brat, and her father leaves for his evening. And then Morgan ends up having quite the night, to say the least.
While there is a lot of creepy goodness going on, "Close Calls" almost seems like they intended to make one movie and then changed their minds halfway through and made another one instead, but left all the footage from the first one in there. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but it gives the movie a surrealistic feel about it. In the first half of the film there are hints of the supernatural -- Gramma lives in some weird almost otherworldly part of the house, locked away with all sorts of supernatural hints about her, and Morgan's interactions with her are really unsettling. Also deeply unsettling is what happens during a visit from her boyfriend. Asi f that weren't enough, Morgan also gets some very weird and creepy phone calls. But most of that is seemingly dropped in the second half when the film moves to other events (which I won't spoil) that are not grounded in the supernatural but are, in many ways, even more disturbing.
At two hours and eight minutes, the film could definitely use some trimming. But it never really drags. Jordan Phipps is getting raves in many reviews for her performance in this film, and those raves are well deserved. It is a brave and complex performance. She spends a lot of time in skimpy outfits and is able to balance vulnerability, fear, and determination throughout. The rest of the cast also does well, and the directing and lighting is clean and professional. As is the case with many indie flicks, the sound could use some work (sometimes too soft and dialogue is spoken very quickly so hard to understand), but still pretty decent. Overall, the film packs a nice whallop and its virtues make it easy to overlook its flaws.
Overall, easy to recommend "Close Calls" as an solid way for horror movie fans to spend a couple of hours.
