When a Stranger Calls: The Original

So I'm taking a quick break from covering the Spider-Man movies for the next few days since I need a little more time to rewatch the two MCU films and collect my thoughts on them. So, over the next couple of days, I'll be covering two new watches and one rewatch, these films being the When a Stranger Calls series. I'm only going to be covering one film per post though, since I want these posts to be a little more brief and I have such different thoughts on all of them that I think it makes the most sense. Also, I should say now that horror is my favorite genre, so this will be far from the last time that I review a horror film on this blog. Not that I will switch my focus to only horror media, but I watch horror movies more than any other genre of movie, so that obviously would lead to more horror reviews. But anyways, I wouldn't expect my first horror movie review on the blog to be this movie, but I actually think it works pretty well. I've never seen this before, but I've heard a lot about it (or at least part of it), so I was interested to visit this piece of horror history

Now let's get to the actual review, shall we?

Disclaimer: This review will have 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 (1979)

Watched on December 1, 2021.

Before I even get to the film itself, I dig the poster. I'm assuming the picture I got was a scanned image since you can see the creases in the poster itself, but it was extremely high quality so I'm just using it anyway. And besides, I feel like the slightly-worn look of the poster kind of fits into the movie's vibe (especially for a movie that's over 40 years old).

But yeah, I'm sure most people who consider themselves horror fans have heard of this film before. Even if you don't like scary movies, I'd be willing to bet that you have heard some form of the "babysitter and the man upstairs" story at some point in your life. The urban legend premise is extremely famous at this point (there was even a version of the story in the popular collection Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), so I feel like it's safe to assume that a lot of people are aware of this premise. But that's where we get into the movie's structure, since this urban legend premise only really plays out for the first 20-25 minutes of the movie. I'm sure many people already knew that too, since this movie is famous for having one of the scariest movie openings and not plots, but this is still extremely important to note. With this in mind, I feel like the best way to go about reviewing it is to split it up into three parts, the film's prologue, middle section, and ending. This basically mirrors the structure of the film itself, as it feels kind of like three stories in one, but not exactly. Anyways, let's start with the film's famous opening.

So yeah, this is the thing that everyone remembers after they watch this movie. To be honest, I didn't set my expectations too high for this prologue. While many critics and viewers agree that this opening is extremely strong, I didn't want to expect too much since it has been riffed on so many times (most famously in the opening of Scream, which is fantastic). After actually watching the opening though, I was impressed with how effective I found it to be. Because the story is so well-known, I was looking for something else to hook me in to the movie (to explain: since I already knew what was going to happen for the entire opening, the tension had to come from something other than the revelation of the stranger being inside the house). What I found was that the movie was able to create tension through means other than the story itself. Mainly, the first thing that sticks out in my head was the music and sound FX. I don't believe there were many sound effects added in post, but what I mean by the sound is the stuff that happens in the movie itself. Specifically, the ringing of the phone happens so many times that you're almost trained to get startled whenever the phone rings, since you know what's going to happen when Jill answers the phone. As for the music, I really liked how it ramped up as the movie progressed. Once the revelation that the "calls are coming from inside the house" happens, the music gets really intense and it gets your blood pumping as you watch Jill try to escape unharmed. I guess there isn't a whole lot to say about the opening that hasn't been said before, but it's tension-filled and a good adaptation of the urban legend. One thing I will note is that I kept realizing how much of the dialogue I recognized as it was being spoken. This is because I saw the 2006 remake first (which I will review in a few days), and I didn't realize that the remake lifted dialogue from the original. I just happened to watch them in reverse order, so it ended up with me recognizing dialogue because of a movie that came out decades after this one. I'll also quickly note that I love Carol Kane in the opening. Lastly, the most important thing I need to point out is the jumpscare at the end. I'm not even sure if it counts as a traditional jumpscare, but I'm just going to refer to it as one since it startled the hell out of me. To summarize, Jill learns of her predicament from the police, and she tries to leave the house through the front door. As she unlocks it, a door opens from upstairs and a shadow emerges from the children's room. The music swells and Jill panics to unlock the door and then, when she opens it, this is what she stumbles upon. 

In terms of plot, this isn't really scary; it's a cop who has arrived to rescue Jill. As an audience member, however, this is so startling. Not a knock on Charles Dunning, but the cop's blank expression as Jill opens the door and screams in his face is just so eerie to me for some reason. If I'm not explaining myself well enough, let me say that the first time I saw this scene I thought that John Clifford was somehow the killer. That basically sums up how creepy I find this scare to be, even if it's not a scare in the ordinary sense.

But I digress, after Clifford saves Jill from the killer. It's revealed that the killer's name is Curt Duncan and he killed the children with his bare hands shortly after Jill arrived. I'm not sure how exactly Duncan could have used his bare hands to "tear apart" the children as the cops say in the movie, but maybe it's best not to think about it. Anyways, after this the movie inexplicably jumps 7 years into the future and basically becomes a different movie. While the prologue could be described as a slasher or psychological horror, the rest of the movie is mostly a thriller that follows a cop (still Dunning) who tries to track down Duncan who has escaped from a psychiatric facility. To be fair, this isn't a horrible way to continue a movie that should have been a short film (even though the director Fred Walton already made a short film version of this movie, the point still stands). In practice, it drags the movie to a halt. To sum up my thoughts, whenever Carol Kane isn't on screen, I'm bored. I just don't think the choice to follow Clifford's efforts to capture Duncan is an engaging one. Also, it suffers from the error of having not much happen until the end. We don't really learn much about Clifford other than he has been hyper-focused on this case, and that he wants to kill Duncan instead of recommitting him. That's the gist of it. Also, Clifford doesn't even interact with Duncan very much besides one chase scene near the end of the film. There isn't much else to say about Clifford during this second part of the movie, but I have a lot to say about Duncan.

I am so confused by the choice to follow Duncan throughout the middle portion of the movie. I wasn't even sure what the intention was? It feels like the filmmakers are trying to humanize (for lack of a better word) Duncan in a strange way because it shows him struggling after re-entering the real world. I do give the movie some credit because it feels like there is some slight commentary on how mental patients are victimized by the systems they've been placed in, but I just don't think it's developed enough, so it feels like they should've just scrapped this entirely. At the very least, focusing on only Clifford and not Duncan for this middle part would give some more suspense to this section, because knowing exactly where Clifford and Duncan are at all times doesn't really create any tension, just waiting. Also, showing Duncan so heavily after not showing him at all during the prologue ruins any mystique that the character might have had in the beginning (and this is important for the ending). I'm also not really sure what Duncan's motivation is during this section. His main thing is that he begins stalking a woman named Tracy, albeit in a very strange way. His interactions with Tracy make me even more confused about the character because I really don't know what he wants with her. Does he really wanna kill her, or is he just drawn to her? And why is he so upfront with Tracy when he was so calculated with Jill in the beginning? I don't really know. I think the movie is trying to imply that Duncan isn't really a cold-blooded killer and he is just extremely troubled, but again, this feels like a weird departure from the prologue. Those are my main issues with the middle portion of the film, but the bottom line is just it's just plain boring. Luckily, the ending of the film switches gears yet again and focuses on Jill's life 7 years after her ordeal.

Just to clarify, when I say "ending" I'll be referring to the final section of the movie, which again ends up being around 20 minutes. This section ends up being much more engaging than the middle section, but it's still not as good as the beginning. It does have a slight pitfall of not much happening again, but this is rectified by the very end. For the majority of this ending portion, the movie mainly shows us what Jill's life is like since the prologue, but it eventually gets back to a horror-tinged plot. To quickly summarize, Jill is now married with children and she goes out to dinner with her husband where she gets a telephone call. She answers the voice and hears Duncan's voice ask her once again "Have you checked the children?" This obviously sends Jill into a panic, but the babysitter and children are fine once Jill and her husband arrive back home. Clifford learns of the incident and travels to Jill's house once he sees the phone lines are dead. As this happens, Jill lies in bed and hears Duncan's voice coming from her closet. She goes to wake up her husband sleeping next to her, but surprise! It's actually Duncan who is next to her and he tries to attack Jill. Clifford arrives as this happens and he shoots Duncan, and we learn that both Jill's husband (who was in the closet) and her children are fine. 

**Here is the jumpscare image of Duncan revealing himself to Jill in the bed. Just compared to the other jumpscare photo I've shared, this is so much worse. This is supposed to be the biggest scare in the movie but when I first saw it I was just like "oh ok" and it really wasn't startling**

One thing I do like about this ending is that we get to go back to Jill's story. As I said before, anytime Carol Kane is on screen I'm more interested, and she's just as good in this ending portion as she is in the beginning. I also like that our expectations of Duncan being in the closet are subverted and I thought that that was a neat scene, even if it isn't really scary (as I explained just above this paragraph). Other than that though, this ending is just kind of meh. I don't really understand how and why Duncan finds Jill again since I feel like he would've found her much earlier in the movie if he only wanted to terrorize her again. Logistics aside, it feels like this ending is only here because they wanted Jill to be in the movie for more than just the beginning, so it ends up feeling a little disingenuous. As an ending though, I guess it does fall in line with the rest of the movie. So, the ending is better than the middle of the movie, but I think it's really only worth it to watch the beginning, so my final rating for the movie was a 5/10. If that rating seems a little high, it's mainly just because I give the movie credit for having a good opening, and the movie is more just boring than anything else, so I don't think that makes it a really bad movie.

So that sums up my thoughts for the original film, tomorrow I'll be looking at the made-for-cable sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back. That film is much less well-known than the original, so I'm excited to share my thoughts on it. Until then!