Private Number (2015)
A series of cryptic phone messages and visions haunt a writer while he struggles to finish a novel. As they increase in intensity, he loses his grip on reality, eventually obsessing over an old mystery that will lead to horrific revelations about both him and his loyal wife.
Watch Trailer
Cast
Reviews
A waste of 90 minutes of my life
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
As I've said before, I like taking a chance on low budget independent genre movies, because you can find some real gems out there. However, you can also find some examples that aren't very good at all, and "Private Number" is unfortunately one such example. As I said in my summary line, the movie feels like it was made by two units, each working on one half of the movie - and not successfully. The first half of the movie is simply the central character going through one hellish experience after another with absolutely no progression in the plot at all. In the second half, the plot does start to progress, but often in a really confusing manner; it often feels like linking footage and vital explanations were cut out or simply not filmed at all. Toward the end of the movie, there is a major twist, but if you have seen your share of psychological thrillers, the twist probably won't be all that surprising. The acting is okay, I guess. And for what was a real low budget, the movie looks fairly decent (except for the cheesy "fire" sequence). But the story is such a mess that I suspect most viewers will stop watching before the first half of the movie has totally passed. And the remaining viewers who stick it out to the end will probably not find the resolution worth it.
Extremely low budget. Moderately entertaining. Fiendishly foul finale. There, in a nutshell, we have the synopsis for the marginally cut-above-standard thriller "Private Number".Michael (Hal Ozsan of TV's "Dawson's Creek") has a case of serious writer's block and it's killing his progress at completing a follow-up novel to a minor best seller debut effort. Then to compound his woes he begins getting freaky phone calls in the middle of the night which seem to evolve into something supernatural. Soon Michael finds himself researching a series of unsolved murders in the California town in which he and his bride Katherine (Nicholle Tom) reside. I'll stop here at the risk of becoming a Spoiler, except to append that things get pretty dang twisty-turny over the cacophonous course of this flick's frenzied finish. And wind up most ominously open-ended.Sniff, sniff. What's that I smell? Can you say "Sequel"?
who films a "horror" movie inside a house with a shaky cam documentary style? Yes, that would make sense if you were filming an episode of the office, because it is presumed that there are people following you around and may not have a tripod readily available. What is your excuse here?And this officer is wearing a Fake Moustache? Why? Why not just grow a moustache, or just not have one in the first place?And if you are going to barricade the door by nailing it shut, are you intentionally doing it as crookedly and shoddily as possible? BOARD UP YOUR WINDOWS PARALLEL! And you only did one door. If anything you are just blocking yourself in, and limiting your escape.OH WHAT THE HELL IS THIS! You called Best Buy's Geek Squad to "hack" into the police database? I had no idea that they provided this service! Private Number: Utter Garbage. And yet I am still watching it.
Not that this movie was by any means great (or even particularly good) before it, but it was at least borderline watchable but the ending.My goodness the ending, a really pathetic and desperate way to end a movie and one that makes little sense to what we've just seen previously.Clearly I can not go into details without spoiling it, so I won't do that but yeah I had to point out the reason this movie went from what probably would have been a 4/10 to a 2/10 in the end.On the plus-side they manage to create some really neat-looking visuals in some of the scenes, and I guess the acting isn't terrible.Tom Sizemore and Judd Nelson have the biggest faces on the poster but they only pop up from time to time, if they weren't the most famous people in the movie they'd probably wouldn't even been on it.