When a Stranger Calls (2006)

God forbid she takes the phone off the hook.

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS is about a guy who likes to make obscene phone calls to teenage girls and then eventually break into their house and kill them. His victim in particular for this movie is Jill (Camilla Belle), a high school girl who is babysitting at a home out in the middle of nowhere. She's been grounded for a month (no cell phone and no car) which sets up the fact that she's REALLY stuck at this isolated house when all heck breaks loose toward the end. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much out of this movie and only saw it because I found out Camilla Belle was in it. Other than that, it probably would have been added to the list of the other lame PG-13 Horror movies that I would have entirely skipped altogether (PULSE, ONE MISSED CALL, PROM NIGHT, etc.).

So with that being said, I think my low expectations were met in full. WHEN A STRANGER CALLS was about an hour of Jill overreacting to nothing and about a half an hour of her getting chased around. Nothing special. There's no real explanation as to WHY the "Stranger" in the film did what he did or what the motive for his past cases was. And on a personal level nothing in the movie struck me as being scary and I think that the fact that I'm not a high school girl could have played a part in that, because I'm pretty sure any adult will watch this film and automatically pick apart its flaws and come up with solutions to many of Jill's problems. And even when you look at this film from the perspective on someone suspending their disbelief and just accepting it for what it is... it's still not very entertaining. WHEN A STRANGER CALLS is not necessarily a remake, per se, but more of a different version of an older film called WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK. In the original film, it used a lot of different things to create suspense and terror, such as plot twists, weird characters, atmosphere, etc. and most importantly it let you KNOW who the antagonist was and what kind of person he was, where as this film doesn't do that. You don't know anything about him other than the fact that he killed a girl in the beginning of the film.

Overall, I didn't like this movie at all. I would watch it again if it was on TV and nothing else was on. It's not entertaining, but it's not COMPLETELY unbearable. The film quality is great, the photography is really nice, and the cast is pretty. It's also not necessarily a Horror film, it's more of a Drama with elements of Horror (a damsel in distress, a psychopathic killer). Ultimately, I think my handicap with this film is that I don't fall into the whole PG-13 demographic. This is a movie for teenagers and that's all there is to it. So if you're a teen, you may like this or if you're smart enough you may see past it's stupidity. If you're an adult looking for something creepy, you should just skip this one and not think twice about it.

2 stars December 17, 2008

When A Stranger Hits Redial

"What are you going to do tonight?" a friend of mine asked.

"I'm going to watch a movie, an old scary one. When a Stranger Calls. It's supposed to be good."

"Is that the one with the babysitter?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen it."

"Yeah. I know that one. It's famous, right? It's the one where you find out he's calling -- "

"Shut up shut up shut up! I don't want to know anything about it. I like to go in fresh."

So I went in fresh, and ten minutes in, I realized that I already knew the creepy twist. And if you've been told at least three campfire tales in your life, I'd wager odds that you know the twist, too. Even if you've never seen the movie in question.

That's not so bad. The first twenty minutes of the original manage to be tense without trying the patience. The elfin Carol Kane stars as a babysitter named Jill who finds her night plagued with strange phone calls. The caller never says much, but what he does say (voiced with fragile menace by the late Tony Beckley) can melt the nerves. It's the kind of powerful scene that is usually found at the climax of a movie.

And therein lies the problem.

WHEN THE STRANGER CALLS (1979) has a neat idea, but nothing to go with it. After the First Act scare, the movie becomes philosophical and ponderous. The camera follows two men: Charles Durning as the dispeptic private detective John Clifford and our resident serial killer, Curt Duncan. "He's from England."

It's not unheard of for a "horror" movie (that's where you'll find this title shelved, but the genre is misapplied) to reveal some of the basic humanity of its villain, but this flick goes a step further and exposes his tenderest vulnerabilities. He is made more human, brittler, his actual madness becomes a place for pity. All of this while Clifford pursues him with squinty-eyed persistence and a lock needle in his pocket. (If you've never heard of a lock needle before, it is a long, pointy thing that you would never, ever want to carry in your pocket.)

Trying to reverse the roles like that -- murderer becomes society's whipping boy versus the man trying to get vengence beyond the law -- makes for an interesting social studies lesson. But it's not hard to get the picture within the first fifteen minutes, and yet there are roughly forty more to go. After this, the finale is a welcome burst of energy, but it doesn't linger with quite the smack that the intro offers.

Certainly a movie that could use some renovation, right? So thought Simon West, whose directorial debut was Con Air. And thus a remake was born.

Watching the remake immediately after the original might have been a bad idea, but it did make a few things very clear to me.

First of all, West must've been aware of the first film's shortcomings, because he only sticks to what worked for the original: the first twenty minutes. Granted, the first twenty minutes would make a GREAT episode of The Twilight Zone (I could've sworn it already was), but a feature-length movie? Errrmmmm.

And there's the unfortunate part. West's re-do steals some scene direction and a lot of lines from the original. But to pad the film out, he has added the tricky maze of a doctor's absurdly large house, along with all of the doctor's weird gadgetry (automatic lights, a greenhouse built in the center of the house, a remote controlled fireplace). He also gives us a few unnecessary characters (a ridiculous visit from a friend and a live-in maid ... why are these people hiring a babysitter if they have a live-in maid?). This plus a very fragile sub-plot involving jogging.

West moves fast once the movie has finally exhausted it's key line ("He's calling **** ****** *** *****!"), which is wise. It gets a little awkward when the kids get involved, but only because they are such poor actors that West films them mostly in obscurity and gives them no lines whatsoever. And whereas the first film shows the killer in a shadowless spotlight, West keeps him as murky as his voice, this time around the over-done gravel of Lance Henriksen. It's a predictable trade-off, and it has predictably mediocre results.

It's a movie that knows what it has going for it. Even after fullfilling the necessary wrap-up, though, West can't resist one last stinger, a completely unnecessary but totally understandable last moment zing that, of course, concludes with the greatest thing about either of these movies:

"HE'S CALLING ...

No. I'm not going to be the one to spoil it for you. November 17, 2008

great service

fast service, I ordered this product and another product the same day and I recieved this product first. movie was in perfect condition. October 20, 2008

Great thriller

This is a great thriller that will keep you at the edge of your seat. A good one to watch to have a little fear while taking a break from blood and gore. August 19, 2008

Eh, could have been better, was a tame movie (includes a Spoiler)

Not a bad movie, it kept me in suspense the entire time wondering when the killer would show up, and so I won't say it was an entire waste of my time to watch, but it could have been better. Maybe it's because this movie is rated PG-13, so not much they can do horror-wise to scare the audience, and as a PG-13 suspense/horror movie it was okay.

Jill is a high school teen who unfortunately ran up the minutes on her cell phone, and in punishment she has to work to pay it off, so she gets a baby-sitting job.

The family lives out in the middle of nowhere, off a lake in a huge house with lots of glass windows (floor-to-ceiling). Very nice place, and very isolated and I thought the scenery and location was very effective in adding to the suspenseful atmosphere of the movie.

Throughout the night she begins to get strange phone calls, heavy breathing or creepy remarks from a strange man. At first, she puts it off as prank calls, but as they increase in frequency and creepiness, she beings to get fearful of who is calling her and why.

Okay, I will say this movie did keep me glued to the TV wondering when the killer would show up and why he was stalking Jill and playing this phone game with her. But once he appeared on the scene I was disappointed. He didn't do anything frightening, he just chased her around, grabbing her throughout the house.

**SPOILER AHEAD**



*****SPOILER*****


Okay, don't say I didn't warn you! You've been warned!!! =)


The ending was also a disappointment, the killer doesn't die, there is no great struggle/fight scene between the killer and Jill, and then the police come, he gets caught, and that's that. The end. You don't learn why the killer has stalked and killed other teen baby-sitters before Jill, you don't learn the motives of the killer either. You don't even get scenes from the killer's perspective, it's all told from Jill's POV.

If you are looking to be truly scared or disturbed then this is the wrong movie for you. It's a pretty tame movie, and although it will get your heart pounding for a bit, it's not a very good horror movie. If you're still curious, by all means go ahead and watch, but don't expect anything great. May 30, 2008

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