Horror Fans Need to Watch Apple TV+’s ‘Calls’

Horror is one of the most difficult yet rewarding genres in film and television. Do it poorly, and a project becomes a joke. Do it well, and you have the potential to reconstruct the medium. The latter is exactly what Apple TV+ has accomplished with its chilling series Calls. By combining sparse visuals with great performances and truly heartbreaking scripts, Calls consistently turns the horror genre on its head, forcing audiences to confront their deepest fear: their own imaginations.

More of a cross between a radio play and a TV show than anything else, each episode of Calls tells the story of a different group of people in the middle of the same apocalyptic event. Every 13 to 20 minute episode unfolds in roughly the same way. Two people call each other on the phone. The more they talk, the more fractured and frankly bizarre their conversations become. For some episodes that means literally melting for no discernible reason. For others it’s becoming trapped in the past. No matter what happens the final moments are all alike. The line cuts off and the credits roll, leaving the viewer to stew in their own anxiety as they panic over this lack of resolution.

As the series progresses it becomes clear that the apocalyptic event at this series’ center has to do with interdimensional communication. People are able to call alternate versions of themselves in the past and future. When Calls dives into the sci-fi reasoning behind its premise, it’s fascinating. Anyone who loves stories about connected dimensions will enjoy the world Fede Alvarez and Timothée Hochet have created, one that disregards clear answers in favor of loaded questions that beg to be pondered. But as well constructed as this premise is, it hardly matters. By focusing more on the emotional effects of this apocalypse rather than the how or why, Calls creates one of the most realistic portrayals of mass disaster.

One episode revolves around a man running from his wife after learning that she’s pregnant. In another, two children try to connect to their long dead mother. In still another a man learns that his wife has been cheating on him. These chapters stand as mini operas, quick yet intensely detailed stories of tragedy in the middle of a worldwide crisis that whisper of universal emotions despite their specificity. What is Mark’s (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) story other than that of a man afraid to grow up and make the same mistakes as his own parents? What’s Patrick (Mark Duplass) and Alexis’ (Judy Greer) dissolving marriage other than a version of our fear that we can’t trust the ones we love most? What’s a daughter’s (Joey King) desperate call to her late mother (Jenica Bergere) other than a form of grief?

While these emotional sagas appear fully formed, nothing else in Calls does. That’s the true horror of this series. Calls forces you to live inside your own imagination. There are some visuals to the show. During particularly intense moments the sound waves of the series will spike, but that’s about it. The rest of the series has to exist inside your own mind. And your mind has a habit of replacing that gray with the worst. For example, when Laura Harrier’s hypochondriac Layla screams and gasps about her bones breaking, your mind automatically fills in the gaps, silently painting the worst possible version of the pain she’s experiencing. That’s the perverse homework Calls gives you time and time again. It’s a series that makes you fall in love with its characters before forcing you to torture them in your own mind.

Calls doesn’t offer you a new way to examine horror. Rather, it offers a deeper look into your own psyche, making you confront your biggest sources of pain and dread in quarter-hour chunks. For horror, fans it’s an experience you absolutely need to have.

Watch Calls on Apple TV+