User reviews

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"?

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.

In this nervous, edgy chiller, TV thespians Hal Ozsan (True Blood) and Nicholle Tom (Gotham, Stalker and the 1990's The Nanny) play Michael and Mary Lane, a yuppie couple in a strained relationship. He's an aspiring writer and she's supporting him. Mary is losing her patience for dealing with Michael's increasingly temperamental artist's personality while Michael, a recently reformed alcoholic, struggles with writer's block. Ordinarily bemused and good-natured when confronted by frustration, Michael's psyche swerves for the worse amid numerous domestic challenges. The situation turns grim when annoying nocturnal hang-up calls complicate Michael and Mary's swelling marital tension.

The calls evolve from apparent pranks into aggressive harassment. One or more disembodied, mostly unintelligible female voices abstrusely mumbles occultist nonsense before concluding with a provocative, "Remember me?" The source of the calls can't be determined. The caller ID displays only the elusive words, "PRIVATE NUMBER."

Fortunately for Michael, Mary hears the calls too -they're not just the product of her stressed husband's imagination. After consulting with the authorities, the couple is nevertheless ready to write off the messages for being the work of a jokester -until unplugging the telephone fails to stop it from ringing.

Circumstances rapidly disintegrate. Mary and Michael descend into an indeterminate and surreal state dominated by ever more abnormal occurrences. The obfuscating presence of silhouetted intruders in their home may or may not be real. Are Michael and Mary suffering a joint delusional breakdown, or are they experiencing supernatural visions? Neither they nor we can be sure, as the duo waivers, then loses their tenuous balance on the threshold between reality and fantasy. Private Number is a nocturnal horror story -most of the action occurs at night within the cloistered, cerulean confines of Mike and Mary's suburban home. False resolutions turn out to be merely dreams. As the edge separating the firmament of certainty from the abyss of bedlam blurs, we're reminded of Irene Trent's (Barbara Stanwyck) ordeal in William Castle's The Night Walker (1964); unable to escape from a perpetual nightmare, she screams over and over, "I can't wake-up!"

Judd Nelson has a role as the local sheriff who inexplicably throws obstacles to the investigation. With The Breakfast Club thirty years distant, a matured Nelson has become ingratiatingly credible in darker roles. He exudes that peculiar Rob Lowe/Robert Downey Jr. screen aura which suggests his character is at best questionable, likely untrustworthy, and certainly sleazy. Tom Sizemore, looking surprisingly fit after spending several years bloated from too many good times, plays Michael's convincingly weathered ex-alcoholic and ex- drug addicted sobriety counselor. It's not a huge stretch for Sizemore, but his portrayal of a character with depth indicates that Sizemore possesses greater theatrical range than he was permitted to exhibit in his many tough guy roles. Private Number's most commanding performances come from relative newcomers to the big screen, television actors Nicholle Tom and Hal Ozsan as Mary and Michael. Tom is well-cast and Ozsan displays commendable versatility when Michael undergoes a dramatic personality shift.

Since it's mentioned early on that Michael suffered a debilitating accident just after meeting Mary, that fact, along with his former alcoholism makes us wonder if Michael had a drunk-driving accident and a victim is the phone-phreaking culprit. When a sleuthing Michael resorts to journalistic instinct to dissect the eerie enigma, we discover ever more likely suspects. Foreshadowing may enable you to deduce who the monster is, yet as Private Number side-winds its serpentine way through Michael and Mary's hallucinatory conundrum, the fun is in the journey.

There's no shortage of horror movies about authors going crazy and summoning up the occult world. Notable examples include The Dark Half (1993) and In The Mouth of Madness (1994). Despite superficial similarities to The Shining and the 2012 movie, Sinister, Private Number manages to be new and different. The film's plot is uncanny and engrossing.

It's effective because writer/director LazRael Lison's unconventional mix of cross-genre story elements makes Private Number an unusual viewing experience. Private Number's offbeat combination of literary conventions shoves viewers off balance and keeps us guessing. The result may confuse and fail to satisfy those who yearn for traditional structure. Yet while Private Number doesn't strive to be an arty movie or to perplex us with an ambiguous open ending, its ambitious weaving of varying cinematic tropes combined with its unsettling, counter-intuitive conclusion will charm fans of those kinds of films.

There is so much waste in this industry, this movie is part of that waste.

Everyone involved in this film should have just donated all of the funds to some animal charity it woild have done a lot more good than this total waste of money. The only reason I gave it 2 stars is judd nelson.

Each of the actors, producers, directors involved in this film should look for an alternative career.

Not only did nothing make sense in this movie, there's absolutely no point, plot, message or any connection to the human world. It is not entertaining, low budget and I am quite frankly surprised why Judd is in it

Some people just have no talent, you can't.

It's honestly almost impossible to follow the story once you realize that the director has chosen to have a sort of "stopwatch" sound ticking in the background of almost every single scene.

I've never been more annoyed in my life. I wanted to watch the thing to see how it ended, but that tick tick tick sound was driving me out of my mind.

I'm not even sure it was intentional--might have been a bad video camera--but since it doesn't show up all the time, I'm pretty sure it was there as some kind of "Ooooo look how cool this is" thing but it failed, miserably.

Wish I'd never wasted my time on this.

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

this movie didn't not take long to get going and it flowed really well , movie felt really fast pace ,

There was good scene in this movie , that I really enjoyed and thought there they were a tad creepy

I liked how the plot came to an end , I enjoyed turn in story but it did cross mind in the part of the movie, that he might lead that way.

I thought acting was very decent from the cast

7 out of 10 really good movie

Always enjoy films with a stunning leading lady and this one delivers. The guy who portrays the husband plays the part of an idiotic wanker, who takes out his inadequacies on his beautiful wife, who if smarter would have given him right to the balls before dumping him.

Okay ... so, I hated the first 1/3 of the movie ... boring ... tedious ... and I fell asleep, which is a first for me.

The acting is adequate ... and the further I got into the movie I found that I had two possible villains, and just when I thought I had the right person ... I switched to my second choice, which was actually my first choice! Bingo!

The two leads are actors (Nicholle Tom & Hal Ozsan) I would like to see more of, and Judd Nelson is usually a good choice as well. Which means I have no real complaints about the acting, or the special effects. However, what I do have a problem with is the ending ... can you say "overkill?" Towards the end, the screen goes black ... and this is where I would have made a change. I would have allowed the screen to remain black for two to three minutes ... then I would have let the credits roll. I believe my ending would have been a far better ending ... ?! For an audience to wait on the edge of their seats, then dropped, that would have been superb! But, with this film, the wait would have to be at least two minutes of cold, black, silence.

I'm not so sure I will watch this movie again, but if I do, I'll skip the first 1/3.

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.