TV Review – Calls

Calls (Apple TV+)
Written by Timothée Hochet, Fede Álvarez, Nick Cuse, Aidan Fitzgerald, Noah Gardner, and Rodo Sayagues
Directed by Fede Álvarez

Apple TV+ has been called the platform with lots of good shows that they never make an effort to promote. I had never heard of Calls until stumbling across a TikTok post. The series was released in 2021, and if not for this horror fan sharing it with the world, I would have continued unaware. Calls is a science fiction/horror anthology, a structure I always find a mixed bag. In this instance, all the stories are connected in the same universe…well, sort of. By the final two episodes, we get a conclusion that wraps things up. What makes Calls such a success where other anthologies falter is how the story is told.

Calls is delivered like the title says, as a series of phone calls (radio communiques in one instance) between people affected by a strange phenomenon. The first episode, “The End,” begins with an exchange between a couple who have been long-distance due to the boyfriend’s touring schedule. There’s the personal plot – he has been cheating on her and wants to break things off – and the larger supernatural narrative. Someone shows up in her backyard. She can see him through the kitchen window. Who is he? The boyfriend goes to bed, and it looks like his sidepiece is already asleep. But then she calls him on the phone. So who is in his bed? Things get pretty wild & weird by the conclusion. The episodes only clock in around 15-18 minutes in length.

Your first thought might be, why isn’t this just a podcast? I thought the same thing until the visual components kicked in. At first, we see a simple line connecting two dots – the two people in the conversation. Another line branches off as one call ends, or someone is put on hold. The lines vibrate as people speak, and their words appear on the screen. When the audio becomes distorted, so does the image. Rather than just repeat this episode after episode, it is obvious so much thought went into how the themes & emotions of the episode could best be represented in this visually abstract space. You can see calm and horror as images in how these lines warp and twist, how color burns or softens. 

What Calls is doing is recapturing a once popular but now mostly discarded form of horror storytelling. You can look at the numerous scary radio programs of that device’s golden era. Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds is an evergreen example. But even further back, we have the epistolary horror stories of Lovecraft and his contemporaries and proteges. It has always made horror more visceral when told in a first-person point of view as the terrors unfold. It allows us to be with the protagonist in the moment, discovering things alongside them and sharing their emotions. 

Calls is an English-language adaptation of a French series that ran for two years. The American version came at a time when COVID had just begun to unfold, so I can see how they ended up with such a stacked cast of actors to provide voices for the characters. We’ve got Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Aubrey Plaza, Ben Schwartz, Pedro Pascal, Rosario Dawson, Judy Greer, and Riley Keough, just to name a few. Everyone does an excellent job with their role, and because the episodes are so short, we don’t have to linger on any performances that might not be as strong. Even someone like Joey King, who I’m not very impressed with typically, does a fantastic job as the lead in her episode.

The series clocks in at 2 ½ hours, so it easily works as a one-sitting watch if you’re up for it. Each story ends on the perfect note, with lots of the existential horror I expect from this genre. The science fiction element – sort of time travel, but more than that – is executed very well. The visuals are designed to represent this mind-bending phenomenon, and they nail it. I just cannot understand why Apple puts so little effort into promoting what it has on its streaming service. I find myself enjoying their output on a more consistent basis than whatever the hell Netflix is doing these days. If you find yourself in the mood for an intense horror story told in a refreshing manner, I think Calls will scratch that itch.