Guillermo del Toro was offered the chance to direct, but turned it down to work on Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008).
The original writer, Andrew Klaven, has mentioned several times that he wrote the script under the assumption that it was going to be a horror-comedy and was very surprised when the movie was made as a 'serious' horror film. Regarding some of the very clunky dialogue he's said "Those were supposed to be jokes".
While in preparation for the film, director Eric Valette never watched the original Japanese version One Missed Call (2003), and asked the actors not to watch it either.
Not screened for critics.
None of the 80 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, resulting in a 0% "fresh" rating as of 2019. Rotten Tomatoes awarded the film the Mouldy Tomato award for the worst reviewed film of 2008.