The Calling (2014)

Directed by: Jason Stone
Country: USA

Movie Review: Debutant South African film director, Jason Stone, reunites an encouraging cast for its dark thriller, “The Calling”, based on Inger Ash Wolf’s novel of the same name, and adapted to the screen by Scott Abramovitch. Names as Susan Sarandon, Christopher Heyerdahl, Ellen Burstyn, Topher Grace, and Donald Sutherland, can be a valid motive to spike our curiosity for the film, which in the end delivered a mix of satisfaction and frustration. A mysterious serial killer (Heyerdahl) chooses the quiet Canadian town of Port Dundas to murder a devoted catholic woman. He based himself on a catholic prayer, believing that a man can be resurrected after sacrifice twelve people. The case will be handled, with authorization or not, by the detective Hazel Micallef (Sarandon), an addicted on alcohol and painkillers, who will have the help of a rookie cop (Grace) recently transferred from Toronto. Sarandon conveyed authenticity in her performance, sometimes very degrading but very human too. Her determination to unveil the mystery and solve the case worked almost like a cleansing for her stained past. Despite of the thrills created, I got the sensation that the film stepped into something already seen, while some of the characters should have been better explored and the relationships among them better defined. Notwithstanding, the grey atmosphere of the town and the mix of grief, religious connotations, and occasionally dark humor, provide a fair watching. The film is coming to New York theaters on August 29th.