*67
2024 · 19m
Directed by Palmira C. Muniz
Genres: dark comedy, horror, thriller
Tones: dark, darkly comic, tense
In 2003, three friends' 'innocent' prank calls take a dark turn when one forgets to dial *67 — and the deranged woman on the other end takes the prank seriously.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A prank-call premise that could've been DOA instead becomes genuinely warped—the woman on the line isn't a victim, she's the one who swallows the fiction whole, and suddenly you're in territory no reasonable horror-comedy would dare. Muniz leans into the discomfort of shared delusion instead of jump scares, which is exactly the kind of contrarian move that makes lesser scouts nervous.
The film understands the lineage of elevated prank-call horror (answering machine anxiety, the landline as portal) while treating its tonal whiplash between comedy and dread as a formal problem worth solving rather than a tonal accident. The editing rhythm between the kids' suburban safety and the caller's increasingly unhinged voice work is precisely calibrated.
What makes this work is the choice to stay *inside* the phone call—no cutting away to victim shots or revenge staging—which forces the entire film's tension through vocal performance and the kids' reactive silence, a constraint that turns a micro-budget limitation into the film's most unsettling formal decision.
Festivals
- Spooktacular Film Fest for Horror & Sci-Fi, Official Selection