When a Stranger Calls

NOTE: I'm talking about the original version (1979), not the 2006 crapfest (I assume; I haven't actually seen that one). Also, this is actually the 3rd time I've seen this movie, but my wife had never seen it. And I've never reviewed it. So here we go.

It's difficult to summarize this movie without spoilers. The structure of the movie is somewhat odd, and that's always been one of its detractors. The movie starts off with 30 minutes of terror that in other movies would be the buildup to a crescendo climax. The main twist of the movie is also revealed within the first 30 minutes.

Suffice it to say that a young babysitter, Jill (played by Carole Kane), is terrorized by twisted phone calls from someone who claims to be watching her, and who claims knowledge of the children sleeping upstairs. The police come to the babysitter's rescue, but not before things have gotten out of hand. The caller is arrested and confined to a mental hospital. Fast forward 7 years, the caller has escaped, and he's on a mission to track Jill and her family down and finish what he started that night.

I feel torn in different directions over this film. On the one hand, the 1st half hour of the movie is just about the most intense 30 minutes in film history. On the other, much of the rest of the film plays like a slow denouement to the early climax. Things pick back up in the last 15 minutes of the movie, but the middle can drag quite a bit. Through the middle of the film, I console myself with the hilariously ineffectual bumbling of John Clifford, an ex-cop turned P.I. hired to hunt down the escaped Curt Duncan. Some of the chase scenes play out like OJ's slow-speed Bronco getaway, and Clifford repeatedly overlooks Duncan's m.o. of stalking people and breaking into their houses while they're away, to lie in wait when they return home.

And speaking of Duncan, I'm torn on him, too. He's such a scrawny sad sack to look at, and he's socially awkward to such a painful degree that one wonders if major errors in casting and character-development have occured. But what fills you with dread about this film's psychopath is his dead gaze and his voice. His slow, soft British drawl leaves you hanging on each word, and when he pauses over the phone to breathe heavily and chuckle to himself, you know that he's completely and utterly insane, and there's no coming back. Regardless of what you think of this movie in the end, there will be nights when the sound of Curt Duncan asking, "Have you checked the children?" will haunt you as you lie awake in bed.

The music for the film is spot-on in creating a sense of dread and keeping you on the edge of your seat. In fact, a little tidbit: the symphonic crescendo known as the THX Sound was first employed in When a Stranger Calls. A full 4 years before the sound started making viewers uncomfortable during movie previews, it made viewers uncomfortable and scared in When a Stranger Calls.

The Reverend says: 6/10.