When a Stranger Calls (1979 film)

Infobox_Film
name = When a Stranger Calls


caption = "When a Stranger Calls" film poster
director = Fred Walton
writer = Steve Feke
Fred Walton
starring = Charles Durning
Carol Kane
Colleen Dewhurst
producer = Doug Chapin
Steve Feke
Larry Kostroff
Barry Krost
Melvin Simon
music = Dana Kaproff
cinematography = Donald Peterman
editing = Sam Vitale
distributor = Columbia Pictures
runtime = 97 min.
language = English
budget = $740,000 (USD) (estimated)
released = 26 October, 1979
amg_id = 1:54171
imdb_id = 0080130
followed_by = "When a Stranger Calls Back"

"When a Stranger Calls" is a 1979 horror/thriller film starring Carol Kane and Charles Durning, directed by Fred Walton. The film derives its storyline from the classic urban legend of "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs". The original music score is composed by Dana Kaproff.

The film was voted no. 28 in Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, while the theme of a murderer calling his prey from inside their own homes has also been used by many other horror films, including "Black Christmas" and "Scream". While this particular story was entirely fictitous, there was a real-life incident, dramatized on TLC, whereby a man broke into somebody's home and repeatedly called their babysitter, before tying a sock to the mouth of her young charge, a little boy. Unlike the film, police reacted immediately and the intruder was caught.

It is followed by the 1993 made-for-television sequel "When a Stranger Calls Back".

Plot summary

In this classic thriller, we meet a babysitter named Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) who is babysitting for a doctor and his wife. The children are asleep upstairs and everything appears to be fine. A man starts calling her with frightening questions like "Have you checked the children?" Jill soon calls the police after more calls come, and Sergeant Sacher tells her that he will trace the call to its location after the next call. Arming herself with a fireplace poker in the dark house, Jill gets one final harassing phone call. After a macabre conversation, the caller hangs up. The phone rings again; this time it's the police who have traced the call. When Jill learns that the calls are "coming from inside the house," she drops the phone to escape. A light turns on at the top of the staircase, showing the shadow of the man. Jill nervously unlocks the front door and screams.

Officer John Clifford (Charles Durning) is then shown at the police investigation. We learn that the children were murdered and the killer, an English merchant seaman called Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley) is sent to an asylum. Cut to seven years later: Duncan has now escaped from the institution he was sent to, and is now back on the streets. Dr. Mandrakis hires ex-cop Clifford, now a private investigator, to find Duncan. However, Duncan has no desire to return to a padded room. His insane journey will lead both Duncan and Clifford to Jill Johnson.

Still not knowing Clifford is after him, Duncan is now a vagrant loner, wandering the streets with nowhere to stay. He gets in a fight and is badly beaten after disturbing a middle-aged lonely woman, Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst), in a bar, and later on follows her to her flat; feeling sorry for his disastrous appearance and for the fact that his attempts at a conversation with her started the fight in the first place, she doesn't force him out of her place right away nor explicitly rebuffs his awkward proposal to visit her for coffee the next night, assuming or hoping it will be the last of him she will see.

Meanwhile an increasingly obsessed and vindictive Clifford, having confided to a former partner (Ron O'Neal) that his intention is to kill Duncan rather than arrest him, follows Duncan's trail right to the bar where the fight took place, and from there to Tracy's place -- precisely the same night in which Duncan is likely to show up for his visit. Clifford goes there and tells her just how dangerous her situation has become. He also tells her that Duncan literally tore and hacked up Mandrakis' children with his bare hands, rendering them virtually unrecognizable, which explains why he was found smeared in blood by the police; this, along with some eerie flashbacks experienced by Duncan later in the movie, is one of the few moments where a concise description is made of the carnage at the Mandrakis household. Upon hearing this, Tracy reluctantly accepts to be Clifford's bait at the bar that evening, although Duncan doesn't show up and she finally decides to return home. Clifford then leaves Tracy's place, but doesn't go far enough in expectation of foul play from the escapee; and indeed Duncan, who was hiding in Tracy's closet, pins her to the wall and briefly muffles her cries for help. When he frees her, her horrified shrieks alert Clifford, force the intruder to flee the scene and mark the start of a cat-and-mouse chase through the streets, during which Clifford is outrun at least in two occasions and finally loses Duncan's track.

Jill Johnson is now an adult, married with two young kids. One night, Jill and her husband Stephen go out to dinner in celebration of a promotion. A friend named Sharon babysits her kids. She references that she saw Jill in the newspaper. Curt Duncan happens to find the same newspaper in the city, and begins to look for Jill once again. While the couple is out. Jill gets a call at the restaurant. She answers, and gets another "Have you checked the children...?" Jill panics and calls Sharon. She says nothing is wrong. The police arrive and escort Jill back home. John Clifford tries to call Jill, but gets no signal. Jill and Stephen go to sleep. Later, Jill goes down for a glass of milk, when the lights go out. She goes back upstairs and gets in bed once again. The closet door opens a little, and she hears the voice of Curt Duncan. She tries to wake up Stephen, who turns around, revealing that Curt is actually in the bed. He rips Jill's nightgown and chases her around the room. Clifford arrives, and kills Curt, shooting him twice. Stephen is revealed to be in the closet, although he is alive. As Clifford comforts Jill, the last shot is of the house, in view of the frightening eyes of Curt Duncan.

Cast

* Charles Durning - John Clifford
* Carol Kane - Jill Johnson
* Colleen Dewhurst - Tracy
* Tony Beckley - Curt Duncan
* Ron O'Neal - Lt. Charlie Garber
* Steven Anderson - Stephen Lockart
* Rachel Roberts - Dr. Monk
* Rutanya Alda - Mrs. Mandrakis
* Carmen Argenziano - Dr. Mandrakis
* Sara Damman - Bianca Lockart
* Richard Bail - Stevie Lockart
* William Boyett - Sgt. Sacker
* Kirsten Larkin - Nancy
* Carol O'Neal - Mrs. Garber
* Ed Wright - Retired man

Reception

Upon its release, and in spite of its $800,000+ budget, the movie went on to gross $21 million at the box office; although there seems to be a consensus on the genuinely disturbing quality of the film's bookend scenes (very especially the first 22-23 minutes, which made up for the bulk of the urban legend on which it was based), most, if not all, of the negative criticism pivoted on the rest of the movie's purported failure to live up to its memorable beginning [ [http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/When-a-Stranger-Calls-(1979) Review by Keith Breese] ] [ [http://www.horror.com/php/article-1107-1.html Review by Staci Layne Wilson] ] [ [http://simplycinema.blogspot.com/2005/01/classics-when-stranger-calls-1979-film.html Movies Made Easy] ] . Said failure is commonly attributed to one or more of the following:

* the sudden change in pace and plot development starting from the babysitter's rescue by the police, and the revelation of the children's fate (roughly around minute 22:30) onward; this change, in the movie, corresponds to a leap forward in seven years, and according to some critics brought the audience into an ordinary chase thriller retaining next to nothing of the film's previous bravado.
* the perceived impression of physical frailty of the movie's villain once he finally appears on screen, the sense of pathos evoked by his character henceforth, especially when Tracy comes into the plot, and the lengths of suspension of disbelief needed to assume him able to hack two human bodies to pieces with his bare hands (this is especially evident in the bar brawl scene). It must be said that actor Tony Beckley was terminally ill with cancer at the time, dying shortly after shooting principal photography.

Nevertheless, the movie's first 22 minutes are largely responsible for the film's current cult following and have been consistently included as one of the scariest moments in contemporary horror filmmaking.

References

External links

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