When a Stranger Calls Back: The Sequel

Here we are with the first and only sequel to the original When a Stranger Calls. And this one is interesting because I feel like it's pretty under-seen compared to the original and the remake. This might have to do with the fact that this was a made-for-TV movie instead of a theatrical one, but it isn't completely removed from the original movie. In fact, the original director Fred Walton returned to direct this film, and stars of the original Carol Kane and Charles Dunning reprise their roles from the first film as well. With this in mind, I'm excited to share my thoughts on this film, and specifically explain why I think that it's a much more effective film than the first one in many ways.

Disclaimer: This review will have some plot spoilers for the film, so scroll to my final rating if you want to see my basic thoughts without having anything spoiled.

When a Stranger Calls Back (1993)

Watched on December 2, 2021. **I'm assuming this poster must come from a home video release for the movie since it originally premiered before Scream was released, and yet the poster inexplicably mentions Scream.**

For this review, I won't be splitting my thoughts up into 3 sections since the structure of this movie isn't quite like the original in that way. I will go through the movie as it happens chronologically though, as the prologue is still important and it is still kind of its own thing compared to the rest of the film (although it isn't quite nearly as removed from the entire plot as the prologue was in the first film).

So, this movie begins in an extremely similar way to the first: we meet a babysitter named Julia (played by Jill Schoelen) who starts to experience strange events just after the parents leave. The setup is almost the same as the first movie, but things quickly diverge once the story gets going. Most importantly, the phone isn't nearly as important in this opening, as I believe that Julia only uses the phone once before the phone suddenly stops working. Because of this, the tension is immediately ramped up compared to the first film since Julia cannot rely on the police to help her once she realizes that she may be in danger, so she has to rely on her wits alone. This time though, the unseen stranger doesn't threaten her in quite the same was the Curt Duncan. The first time Julia hears the stranger, he is knocking on the front door and imploring that his car has broken down and that he needs to call the auto company. Julia refuses to let him in (smart!) and tries to call the company herself, but that's when she realizes the phone lines are dead. Rather than revealing this information (I'm not quite sure why she does this), she just goes back to the stranger and pretends like she has called the company. Obviously, she cannot keep up this ruse forever, and this is when the stranger repeatedly knocks on the door, and his conversations with Julia become a little more tense. I won't detail everything else that happens in the opening, but it becomes clear that someone has been moving in and out of the house and Julia eventually comes face-to-face with someone in the house. I think that this prologue is just as effective as the original's. Clearly the original has the upper hand when it comes to how iconic it is and how good it is at adapting a famous urban legend, but this sequel is more unpredictable and delivers more tension than I was expecting it to. I think that some of this tension comes from how strange the events that take place are (and this applies to the rest of the film too), but I actually liked how off everything was. As for the ending of the prologue, it's killer, and it might even deliver a better scare than the original depending on your expectations.

That's it for the prologue, but the final thing that I should note is what happens to the children. In the first movie, we learn that Duncan killed the children with his bare hands (pretty horrifying to think about), but in this film, the children are kidnapped and they were never found. I don't wanna compare the ways in which the children have been terrorized since that just feels weird, but I will say that I like that they didn't do the same thing again for the sequel. Anyways, after the prologue, this film similarly jumps ahead in the story, this time being 5 years. Julia is in college now, and I think the film does a great job at showing how the ordeal has affected her life. She now is quiet and nervous, and she notices things are off in her apartment. Things in her apartment aren't where she left them, and after this happens several times, she starts to believe that the stranger from the prologue is still stalking her. At this point, the movie diverges greatly from the first film in that the plot after the prologue is actually interesting. Once Julia shares her fears, she meets Jill Johnson who is now a counselor at her college. Jill takes Julia under her wing and also contacts John Clifford to help find Julia's stalker. I really thought that this was a great way to incorporate the legacy characters. The way that Jill is portrayed reminded me a little bit of Laurie Strode in Halloween 2018, but this movie did it long before that one, so it really deserves credit for that. The way that I thought these portrayals were similar was that both women were clearly still haunted by their past encounters, but they also have developed their survival skills and know how to protect themselves. As for John Clifford, I think I also liked him better in this film since he seems less like an obsessed cop and more like a normal private investigator. He provides a nice contrast to Jill since he is more skeptical of Julia's story (especially when it comes to Julia's insistence that there were 2 strangers targeting her in the prologue), while Jill wants to believe Julia, so we get some good character moments for both of them. One thing that I want to point out specifically is the way that Jill teaches Julia how to use a gun and lets her stay in Jill's apartment. I think this makes Jill both a protector and mentor for Julia, since she keeps her from the unsafe situation in Julia's apartment but also shows her how to protect herself when Jill can't protect her. 

The other main thing I want to discuss in this review is the villain. Unlike Curt Duncan, the villain in this movie is much more mysterious. I think that this is a great improvement on the original, since the villain is much more intimidating when you don't know much about him other than what he is capable of (as we learned in the movie's prologue). One thing that is similar to the original is that I still don't fully understand why this stranger is fixated on Julia, but in this case I feel like it's a little more believable than the first. Since we don't get to see the stranger's perspective, there is less opportunity to find holes in his plot to terrorize Julia. The other thing that really intrigues me about the stranger is how eccentric he is compared to other horror villains in general. Without trying to say too much—I know this is a spoiler review but I don't want to explain the whole plot—Clifford ends up discovering a unique aspect to the stranger. The reason that Julia believed there were 2 strangers in the movie's prologue was because the stranger is a talented ventriloquist. So, instead of being outside of the house like Julia thought he was the entire time, he actually was moving in and out of the house while making his voice sound like it was outside, and this is why she thought he was outside even when he lunges at her. We even get to see this skill in action during one of the most interesting scenes of the movie (shown below).

**I never thought I would describe a ventriloquist act as disturbing, but this one takes the cake. Even without hearing what the stranger says, just seeing the doll without a face and the image of the stranger's eyes popping out from his face (because it is the only white you see on his body) is creepy enough.**

Shortly after this theory is spoken, the story switches to focus more on Jill than Julia. I won't explain exactly why this happens, but I think that it was a good change to bring the story full circle from the first film. I don't exactly understand how the stranger is able to pull of the skill of making his voice sound like it's coming from a completely different place than where he is standing, but I'm just going to be willfully ignorant and assume that some people actually can do this in real life. Even if it is made up, it's still a unique characteristic to give to a villain like this. 

Lastly, I want to quickly go over the ending of the film. As I said, Jill becomes the main focus of the story near the end, and I quite like this. After the ventriloquist act shown in the photo happens, Clifford chases after the stranger but is unable to catch him (in a scene that is similar to the one in the first film, but again it's done a bit better here). Clifford eventually finds the stranger's home and discovers some evidence that he has been stalking both Julia and Jill, and transitions to Jill encountering the stranger in her own apartment. Once she realizes that her apartment has been broken into, a small cat-and-mouse game begins with the stranger taunting Jill while she tries to find him. Again, the stranger's skills of manipulating his voice are used to good effect here, but this scene also works as a good example of his good camouflage abilities. I won't show what the stranger has made himself look like in this scene, but I will say that I didn't spot him until he was pointed out and I was startled by what ended up happening in the scene. Obviously, everything works out in the end and our 3 main characters survive the movie, but I liked the tension in this ending. The main thing I don't like about the last 20 or so minutes of the film is that it feels like everything happens a little bit too quickly for my liking. The first hour of the film does a good job building up tension, but I wish there was like 10 extra minutes at the end just to expand on the events that occur. Besides this though, I think that this ending was more effective at scaring me than the first film, so I do praise it for that.

I ended up not having as much to say about this movie as I thought I would, but I guess I always have more to say when I don't like a film or an aspect of a film, but this was really solid all around. It gets rid of all of the irritating elements of the first movie, and expands on everything that I liked. Because of this, my final rating for the movie was an 8.5/10. The pacing was a little off at some points, but I didn't find many flaws in this movie and I think that it's a seriously underrated piece of 90s horror cinema. If you have seen the first movie and you didn't enjoy it that much, I would still give this film a chance as I think that it's a superior sequel. Also, at the time of writing, it's free to watch with ads on IMDbTV, so I'd highly recommend that anyone who is interested should check this one out.