When a Stranger Calls

Rating:
Summary: have you checked... the children?
Review: I saw this with my parents when I was in 6th grade... I can't believe they took me to see this disturbing film! I just stopped having nightmares last year. It was such a popular film, however, that about every kid in my school had seen it and before such phrases as "Where's the Beef?" and "Show me the money!" became part of pop culture, everyone was saying, "have you checked the children?"

Seriously though, this film isn't for children. It's true life horror and even more true to home in these violent days we live in. When this film came out, no one ever heard stories about Polly Klaas or other children abuducted from their own bedrooms, or intruders entering a home for any purpose other than burglary. Sure, it happened... but it wasn't as prevalent as it is today.

Not contented enough to kill two young children with his bare hands, the antagonist intends to finish off the babysitter as well. Carol Kane is superbly convincing as the terrorized babysitter and Charles Durning does a stunning job as the police detective that won't rest until he can get rid of this guy for good. Slow in some places, but they're really just getting you calm enough so that scare the wits out of you when you least expect it.

The film is most focused on psychological terror... you really don't see much violence, you just hear about it and expect it. It may seem a little unsophisticated by today's standards, but it will scare the willies out of you.

Rating:
Summary: Thank Goodness for Caller ID!
Review: The granddaddy of them all when it comes to babysitter chills and thrills. A humdinger of a chunker performance from the petite but mighty Carol Kane. Bless her heart, she is just so soft spoken and good natured here! Relatively skimpy performances from heartthrob Charles Durning although this fish out of water puts on a whale of a show. The loose floozy turned stalker-victim adds some much needed character development and meaning to the story. "When A Stranger Calls" electrified and revolutionized the babysitting world, causing the profession to change titles to "child care worker" (trouble filling the help wanted ads). This movie has its share of the most bone chilling and spine tingling sequences in cinematic history. The first ten minutes couldn't be better! The anxiety producing bedroom scene is truly a worst case scenario ifin' yer fixin' ta snuggle up with yer' honey. Too bad the film is generally choppy, ruff around the edges, and a bit rambling, not unlike this review, I reckon. But it's fun and quite humorously bizarre until you actually have your own children--The subject matter then elicits a different set of emotional hybrids. "When A Stranger Calls" delivers a knockout punch of (somewhat regretablly) unforgettable chlld care horror film memories that will never be duplicated. If you are extremely short on time or don't have the patience for a less than mediocre plot, here's a suggestion: For the thrill of a lifetime, watch the first ten minutes--This is less time than it takes to drink a large cup of mocha java while providing 100 times the jolt! Another approach would be to watch the movie until you may become a little restless with the lack of a true storyline. Then pop to somewhere in the late middle, and ride it out from there. It's almost as though some genius discovered skin crawling ideas ever but didn't know how to integrate them into a good script. Not recommended for children, those who love children, or for the squeamish. Those with children will undoubtedly refine their patterns of speech, e.g., no longer asking their spouses if he or she has checked the children. You will find different terminology or just do it yourself.

Rating:
Summary: a frightening classic
Review: They just don't make 'em like this anymore. I watched this film for the first time while I was babysitting as a teenger, and let's just say it was the longest night of my life. The story mixes the classic urban legend with a detective mystery and relies more on characterization and suspense than gore and exploitation. One of the few horror films where you actually feel sorry (!) for the villain. Carol Kane, Tony Berkley, Collen Dewhurst and Charles Durning all give realistic performances. The mood evokes your innermost fears. I just watched it again two nights ago and still get goosebumps when Carol Kane picks up that phone only to have the cop warn her.... well, if you don't already know the legend, you'd better find out for yourself...

Rating:
Summary: When a Stranger Calls
Review: Now before anyone who really loves this movie takes a hissy fit (hehe), let me first say that this isn't a bad thriller. The acting from the cast is excellent, especially from the leads Carol Kane, Collen Dewhurst and Charles Durning. The atmosphere is dark and eerie, making this a thorougly effective and powerful thriller. But I found that the space between the opening "check the children" scene all the way to the ending where Carol lies beside...(well I won't spoil it), was completely unnecessary. It was quite dull and boring in this section of the film and would've been better and alot more scary without it. Overall though, a fantastically scary thriller.

Rating:
Summary: If only it had been different
Review: The main problem with this film is that the most suspenseful scenes are at the beginning and the end. What's in-between is sleep-inducing. After a rousing start, we watch cop Charles Durning pursue the escaped perpetrator of the early film's crimes for most of the film. Also, the finale is quite far-fetched and unbelievable. The makers of this film reportedly claimed that Halloween ripped-off the "babysitter in peril" theme before they could put their version on-screen. Halloween is light-years better than this film and it maintains the level of suspense and tension throughout the entire film. All-in-all, this film was too little, too late. Carol Kane, Charles Durning and Colleen Dewhurst all do their very best, but the script fails them all. Maybe they should have taken the opening scenes (which last about 20 minutes and are the very best parts of this film) and stretched them out for the rest of the film?? What a pity.

Rating:
Summary: Have YOU Checked the Children?
Review: What a keeper! I hadn't seen this movie since I saw it in the theater many years ago. I got the same goosebumps I did 'way back then. This movie still comes across as unique in the scary genre, and it certainly was when it was released. Some have complained that this movie goes on too long, and is too involved. I don't see it that way. I particularly enjoyed the performance of Colleen Dewhurst, she was still quite attractive when this was made. And, of course, Carol Kane fit her part to perfection. I showed this to a teenage niece of mine who didn't know it and it scared the Dickens out of her!

Rating:
Summary: One of the top 5 thrillers!
Review: If you want to be scared buy this D.V.D., it has everything and more. I have to say the 2nd part was even better (I just wish they had Carol Kane with her husband and children as in the first one). I will let it slide though. You "WILL NOT BE LET DOWN.) I don't want to say to much just BUY IT! Everyone has babysat one time or another and this is something that just "could and possibly has happened." When the phone rings it is enough to send you checking around the place that all your doors and windows are locked! If you rent this movie you will just be going out the next day to buy it so save yourself some time just buy it! The caller has a real scary voice and when he keeps asking the question "have you checked the children" is enough to make you want to run out of the house and NEVER babysit again! I am hoping they come out with a part 3, maybe "When a Stranger Calls Back Again".....

Rating:
Summary: Treat it as a short film...
Review: This is what you do.

This is the most expensive short film that you will every buy. Get it and watch it for the first 20 minutes up until when that scene ends. Then you have 3 options.

(1)NEVER watch the rest of the film and enjoy the best short film about suspense and horror you will likely see.
(2)Scratch the remainder of the disk so that you can NEVER watch the rest of this film.
(3)Watch this film and realize how this is in fact a one star movie that almost ends up killing the opening scene.

Yes sir, this is the most expensive short film you will ever buy, but franky the price of the ticket is worth the opening sequence alone. The rest is total garbage.

Rating:
Summary: When a viewer yawns
Review: Despite a raging indifference to the acting chops of Carol Kane--I still can barely stand to watch "Taxi" largely due to her annoying grate--I decided to give "When A Stranger Calls" a chance. After all, who hasn't heard about the opening segment of this film, where babysitter Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) fields an increasingly sinister series of phone calls imploring her to "check on the children"? Lingering camera shots showing the dark, silent parts of the house highlight the growing sense of fear and despair felt by Kane's character as she bravely stands her ground for the benefit of her employer's children. Several phone calls to the police bring the men in blue into the picture, but will they get there in time if the caller materializes? The ominous shadow on the staircase signals trouble of a most horrific nature, Kane reacts, and the scene plays out to its grim conclusion. And then the real horror starts, the stark, soul shattering horror of watching a movie with a memorable beginning sink into a morass of banality. "When A Stranger Calls" would have worked better as a short, independent film strongly emphasizing its bravura opening instead of plunging into the sprawling mess we get here. Too bad.

Years after that horrible night Curt Duncan, the crazed caller, is back out on the streets after a lengthy stint in an insane asylum. Unfortunately, no one told retired detective and now private eye John Gifford (Charles Durning), the cop who was there the night the caller terrorized Jill Johnson. The father of the children brutalized by Duncan hires Gifford to bring the psycho down anyway he can, if for no other reason than to prevent a repeat performance in some other person's family. Gifford agrees to take the case and begins looking for Duncan. "When A Stranger Calls" rapidly descends into boredom from this point forward, as we see Duncan attempting to rejoin society and utterly failing. He ends up in a bar where he meets Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst) and promptly receives a heck of a beating after attempts to ingratiate himself with Tracy brings on the wrath of a beefy bystander. Why Duncan expresses so much interest in a cranky barfly is just one of the many inexplicable questions that arise frequently during the film. You have a better chance of discovering the origins of the Sphinx or learning quantum physics at the age of three than understanding why this movie takes the turn that it does here.

As Duncan takes a beating at the bar, Gifford enlists the aid of one of his cop friends, Charlie Garber (Ron O'Neal), now a lieutenant on the force who remembers the bloody horror of that night but hesitates in helping his buddy. This part of the film is interminable, with lots of shots of Tracy strolling through the blasted landscapes of her city in the middle of the night, Gifford pounding the pavement around town trying to track down Duncan, and the former caller's inept attempts to evade capture. Seeing Charles Durning run, although highly amusing and slightly worrisome from a coronary angle, is not enough to elevate this segment of the film. Thankfully, the film returns to its frightening pace at the end, when the now married Jill Johnson once again encounters Curt Duncan. And this time she has here own children to worry about. The scene where she takes a phone call at a restaurant is worth slogging through the preceding sixty minutes, as is the final showdown shortly thereafter.

Another let down with "When A Stranger Calls" comes when we finally see Curt Duncan face to face. The guy simply isn't that scary in person. He's older, sort of thin, and looks like your average, every day type of guy and not anything like some former sailor with an insatiable lust for blood. Apparently, the actor who played Duncan, Tony Beckley, died shortly after making the movie. As for Carol Kane, she does a good job playing the eternally frightened Jill Johnson but then promptly disappears for a large part of the movie. Durning sleepwalks through the role of the determined cop John Gifford and Colleen Dewhurst is largely wasted in the meaningless role of Tracy. The performances on the whole aren't bad, but the wooden pacing and uninteresting middle part of the film insured that no performer, no matter how good, could have saved this movie from the doldrums.

The DVD doesn't offer much in the way of extras, but it does give you the option of watching the film in either fullscreen or widescreen. "When A Stranger Calls" really is worth watching in its entirety due to the beginning and the conclusion; just don't expect to find a high level of dramatic tension throughout. I see that many, many reviewers present a united front about this film, something that rarely happens with most movies out there. They are not lying. Go ahead and watch the picture, but prepare yourself for some serious tedium in the process. Perhaps you can take a short nap while you wait for the conclusion?

Rating:
Summary: scary opening scene
Review: I remember watching this movie as a kid. The opening scene is a classic among thrillers!