crystallogic
I'm really torn about this one, folks. There are a lot of really nice things about it, but also quite a few that don't work. In the end I'm coming down positive because I think the good far outweighs the bad, and also, I believe that the director really did a stand-up job of turning a slightly questionable script into a really chilling, sometimes even atmospheric thriller.Can I just say that I think the reviewers who say the middle of this film is weak are close to the mark, but not quite there? In brief: everything featuring Kurt Duncan is awesome; everything featuring ex-cop John Clifford is not. Clifford is bull-headed, obnoxious and not much of a hero. Somehow, things that would work for a Lou Archer or Sam Spade just don't work for this guy. Charles Durning has all the right grizzled, hard-bitten attitude and checks all the right boxes, but I'm not convinced. Scenes like him getting a pep talk from his former colleague on the force just send everything to a grinding halt. I don't care about this guy. I care about Kurt Duncan, and i want to know what's happening with him. I enjoy classic detective novels, so it's not as though I'm opposed to the form; I just don't much like it here.Of course, I'm not saying Tony Beckley's Kurt Duncan is a hero. he's a monster, if an unfortunate one, and although the film manages to convey sympathy for him, that's down to performance and direction, I think, more than script, and besides, in the end you have no choice but to root for the ex-cop turned PI. Now, about this Tony Beckley. This guy should have been going places after this film. Simply put, his performance is really something to behold: both menacing and tragic and awkward and, well, when it comes down to it, completely insane. He's guaranteed to give you the chills on at least three occasions, and I'm not even talking about that oh-so-influential opening scene where he's just a voice on the phone. Now, I admit this wasn't my first exposure to Tony Beckley; in fact I know him better as mad botanist from hell harrison Chase in Doctor Who and the Seeds of Doom, made three-or-so years before this movie, where he delivered a brilliant, over-the-top and still scary performance that has to be seen to be believed. So, I already knew what he could do. This is a rather different performance though; much quieter and, well, less "camp", if that's even the right word, but pitch-perfect in every way. His death shortly after this film was made is a real tragedy because if all had been right with the world, his star would have been on the ascendent due to his performance as the crazed child killer Kurt Duncan. It was just not to be.So, as everyone knows who has read this review page (or seen the film, or even heard about it from elsewhere), the opening scene is a fantastic piece of suspense that could have made a great short film in its own right. It's just the prologue, really, and the closing scenes with Carol Kane's Jill are the coda that wraps everything round to the beginning again. It's a nice piece of writing, for sure. But Kurt trying to make his way in the world and slowly descending into madness is, to me, just as good, though I would rather have seen more of it and less of John Clifford, sorry to say. The scene in the bar with the middle-aged lady, who seems so very nice despite everything, is really, really good -- tense because you don't know if Kurt's bloodlust will kick in, but awkward because he's trying, trying to establish some kind of connection, and you're not totally sure if there are malevolent gears churning in his head, but you think there might be. For a moment, Kurt almost seems like a lost soul adrift in a ruthless world, and yes, you really, really hope the nice lady is going to be ok, but you can't help but imagine a path where Kurt calms down, makes a friend and gets away to start a better life elsewhere.I also did appreciate Carol Kane's performance in this movie, though really, she isn't in it much. She and the director pull off a real feat with the opening 20 minutes in the Doctor's house. Her tension is very evident and believable, and although her first call to the police is utterly useless and shows a lack of considered thinking, I sure as hell can't blame her. Then, the older Jill, living her storybook life, suddenly falls to pieces when she hears that voice on the phone again after all those years: "Have you checked teh children?"...a terrible echo from the past. Carol here pulls off a very convincing total panic attack and breakdown, and I felt she was really living this part. Nice job.Now, I'm not done criticising this movie yet, unfortunately. Although I have more good to say than not, I feel like someone, maybe a producer or some studio exec or something, might have tried hard to make this a more "acceptable" picture, and today I think we can say this was to the film's detriment. Although I think the director really believed in this material, on the whole it seems to lack a certain something. Maybe it's conviction? This was the 1970s, a fantastic era for horror films, but the 80s were so close you could smell them, and it's really just the excellent direction and Tony Beckley's performance that save When a Stranger Calls from being, perhaps, just a bit too sanitised. I've seen loads of 70s films; it's probably my favourite decade for genre films and I know just far they could go sometimes in showing the depths of human psychopathy and derangement. This film, tragically, seems to be pulling back, or maybe, someone is pushing in the wrong direction. the John Clifford character is an obvious nod to the need to have a hero to court the acceptance of the public. He's a really cliché character, and I'm glad that at least the crew had the good sense to end the film when it did, rather than give him a pat closing redemption scene or something. Jill's storybook life is a bit too convenient, although one could argue, this all the better to have it punctured by the return of Kurt the Demon. There are some small holes that could have been closed in the script, for instance, how did Kurt know Jill would be at the restaurant? if he was found insane at his trial, I'm surprised the subject of extradition to England never came up. And finally, the music, while effective in some places, often comes off as too bombastic and "Hollywood". Imagine if this film had been scored by les Baxter or something. I think that would have been great!
laylastepford
Acting: 17/20 Writing: 31/40 Directing/Editing/Production/Etc: 27/40Overall: 75/100 CReview: Carol Kane did not really prove why she deserved to be in Hollywood with this performance. There were a couple scenes where she really hit her mark and did a good job, but all of her other scenes were the opposite: very mediocre and unconvincing. The rest of the cast did a great job though.*Spoiler Alert!*I'm not quite sure why Carol Kane is billed as the star of the film as she's hardly in it and isn't very good in it. I suppose at the time this film came out, it was a twist that the film would follow the "private detective" and the murderer more than the babysitter and the murderer etc. That being said, she did do a better job playing the mother at the end than she did the babysitter in the beginning - particularly the scene in the restaurant on the phone.The real star of this film, was Tony Beckley as the psychotic murderer. He genuinely captured an insane man and portrayed him in a way that was much more realistic than the more common Hollywood route of showing people who are insane. The way they showed his descent back into madness after experience "shock-therapy" a total of 38x over 6 years was actually very realistic and compelling. From the writing to the acting to the way it was shot, all of the scenes involving this character were very well-done, particularly where he was being reborn into the "monster" that he had been.Charles Durning as the officer-turned-private detective/hit-man, also did a great job playing his character. It wasn't outstanding but it was very convincing, the second-best performance in the line- up.Colleen Dewhurst as the potential victim and/or romantic-interest of Curt Duncan did a decent job as well. Nothing great but still better than Carol Kane's performance in some scenes.Sort of like the acting, the writing had some extreme highs and extreme lows. The originality and creativity if the writing of this film needs to be commended. I went into this film expecting the entire thing to be about the original Babysitter-Caller legend yet it was only about the first 20 minutes of the film. Taking this route actually made the film even more exciting, as well as bringing it back full-circle to Carol Kane's character as the mother out for a date instead of being the babysitter.The fact that the film went so much into the character of the psychotic killer and followed his descent into madness - along with the ex-cop trying to hunt him along the way - was very riveting.Unfortunately, there were a few plot holes that really took away from the quality and consistency of this film. The idea that Curt Duncan was able to find the babysitter at the end of the film - as well as wanting to, almost out of nowhere instead of having that desire the entire time - was not very credible. Jill Johnson was supposed to be married with kids now, so she presumably changed her name so how could Duncan have known what that name would be to be able to find her? The edit to this didn't explain anything about how he found her which is a shame because it could've easily been done. For example: Durning was already going after Duncan and knew he was loose. It would be reasonable for Duncan to start stalking Durning, since he knows he is trying to kill him and Duncan's already a stalker. If Durning got into contact with Jill Johnson to see if she had been contacted at all by Duncan, it could've been the perfect way for Duncan to have found Jill, through following Durning.Furthermore, the fact that Duncan didn't try to stalk and kill Durning after he knew that Durning was after him, was illogical as well. It's odd that he just ran away from Durning and randomly decided to go back after Jill Johnson. In addition, the fact that Duncan went after Jill and her husband before her kids was also inconsistent with his character. I think a more accurate and even more frightening ending would've been if Jill Johnson had come back completely full-circle to find her kids slaughtered by Duncan with the babysitter running out - just as she had before.*End of Spoiler Alert!*The film did a great job of keeping the suspense building and creating a very suspenseful atmosphere with the right pace, etc. However, there were some scenes that were very characteristic of B- movies. A fight scene where fists obviously weren't making contact and blood randomly appears out of nowhere with inconsistent injuries, along with a shooting scene that doesn't match up when taking in the angles and positions into account, were some classic production mistakes. The music had some great moments of adding to the film but there were also some moments that it wasn't so great and took away from the scenes just a bit. Overall this film was very suspenseful and original - despite being based on a common urban legend. It's not one of the best films ever done but it's definitely still worth a watch, especially if you're a horror or movie fan in general.
chaos-rampant
The film is notorious for the opening sequence, a babysitter receives unsettling phonecalls in the middle of the night, most reviews recommend it for this opening and find the rest boring. The scene is potent, if not typical now, there are more intense scenes from the time, and yet the rest of the film also deserves to be propped up in horror viewers' estimation.It's telling that only the opening (and very similar last) scenes are recommended, the ones were a pure girl is menaced in four walls by an unseen presence. Inbetween the killer is revealed to be not a masked figment of pure evil but a mentally unstable john who gets a beating, later on we follow a burly PI as he tracks him and not a beautiful girl as she scampers away in terror. I say again and again in IMDb comments that horror is a matter of perception, this is so clearly what haunts in the first scene, the notion that something, a presence, is out there in the same house, that it can be anywhere and conjured anywhere by the imagination, the kitchen, the livingroom, that it comes through the phone to haunt the whole of space. And so a closer look shows that the whole film is in the same vein, a proximity to evil, a premonition and search for it in familiar surroundings, initially (and again in the end) this is just the ordinary suburban home but later opened up to be the whole of New York with its crummy alleys and nondescript concrete, and this is every bit as potent, that the presence of this deranged man somewhere in this city brings out a whole place that is quietly haunted and suffers.One scene marvelously has him hide in a Salvation Army hospital in the middle of the night, we see nameless streets with baleful figures dragging their feet, drunks, hobos, earlier a lonely woman alone in her house after bar-hopping; there's a whole lonely city that aches out there. And I also like how this disembodied presence becomes a damaged human being, and that we become the killing presence seeking him out. The PI (ex-cop) decides to snuff the killer rather than make the arrest, the moral complexity has him lie to him in the end as he tries to calm him down so he can get a quick kill.It is slow in the middle, not as a matter of art so much as dwelling observation. It's not all there, you will have to observe and imagine, but what you will imagine may be something like the horror film Cassavetes never made.
