It’s unlikely that you have a landline or a flip phone anymore, but at one point, having either of these could induce some fear and anxiety around who’s calling. No one wants to answer their phones now anyway because just text me, duh?But back in the day, there was no texting, so we had to answer when someone called. How awful!
If you’re ahorror fan, you probably have a little more fear around an unknown caller or text than someone who doesn’t partake in the spooky and macabre. That’s due in part to some of our favorite scary movies likeScream,One Missed Call, andThe Black Phone. However, there is one horror movie that really got this telephone trend going: the 1979 classic,When A Stranger Calls.
When A Stranger Callsis about a babysitter, Jill (Carol Kane), who is being harassed by a man who is consistently calling her and asking if she has checked on the children after she put them to bed. After contacting the police and having them trace the number, they regret to inform her that “the call is coming from inside the house!” That’s the first 20 minutes of the film, anyway, and many moviegoers wish the movie would’ve stopped there. The next 60 to 70 minutes of the film felt very fumbled and like an entirely different movie. Trying to fix the error of its initial ways, directorSimon Westand screenwriterJake Wade Wallremade the classic in 2006 under the same name and expanded the first 20 minutes into a full-length film.
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The 1979 ‘When A Stranger Calls’ Felt Like Two Different Movies
After the tense and suspenseful first 20 minutes of the 1979 film, audiences felt like the rest of the movie was entirely unrelated or could’ve been another film in itself. After Jill realizes that the caller has killed the children, she sees him in the house. The killer is an English seaman named Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley) and he leaves her unharmed and is sent to a psychiatric facility. After seven years, he escapes the facility and returns to harassing women. John Clifford (Charles Durning) is hired by the family of the murdered children to find Duncan now that he has escaped. Clifford becomes obsessed with finding Duncan, so he asks a woman to lure him into action.
When that plan doesn’t work and Duncan gets away, he heads back to find Jill and continue his reign of terror on her. Duncan enters Jill’s home and knocks her husband unconscious and attempts to capture Jill. Clifford arrives at the right time and shoots him in the chest. The problem that audiences had with the rest of the movie was how lacking the suspense and scares it was. Those first 20 minutes of Jill feeling scared and tense about an unknown caller were putting audiences on the edge of their seats. It was relatable because everyone had a telephone and many were parents who enlisted the help of a babysitter when they went out. They really felt it could happen to them. The opening scene in the film was so iconic and scary that it was paid homage to byWes Cravenfor hisopener with Casey Becker(Drew Barrymore) inScream. After that, it fizzled into an essentially useless storyline.
The 2006 ‘When A Stranger Calls’ Remake Expanded on the First 20 Minutes
Since everyone loved the opening scenes ofWhen A Stranger Calls, West and Wall wanted to capitalize on that success and use this as the basis for their remake. Jill is back, played byCamilla Belle, and she is plagued by an unknown caller as she’s babysitting. Since the remake happened in 2006, West and Wall made everything more modern. Instead of a landline, Jill is harassed on her flip phone while in a very sleek and chic home with windows from ceiling to floor. The home is mostly in the middle of nowhere, but it dates itself by mentioning how Jill has gone over her cell phone minutes on her plan. They kept the same creepy line of “Have you checked the children?” and the equally iconic moment of the police ringing Jill to tell her that “the call is coming from inside the house.”
Those felt like non-negotiables from the original and they upped the creep factor in the film. The focus changes from being centered around the caller for the bulk of the film in 1979 to focusing on Jill in the remake. Getting to know the lead character and her life outside this incident helps form a connection to her that makes the viewer want her to survive. The downfall of the remake was thePG-13 rating. Because of the rating, the movie is without much blood or gore and has to rely solely on jump scares. A good majority of those jump scares fall a little flat, but the score and cinematography of the film keep some of the tension alive.
Both Films Were Based on an Urban Legend
The Urban Legend ofthe babysitter and the man upstairsis what inspired the 1979 film. Almost identical to the movies, the urban legend is about a babysitter who receives mysterious phone calls about checking on the children she’s babysitting. The calls are eventually revealed to be coming from inside the house, just like inWhen A Stranger Calls. That Urban Legend inspiredthe short film,The Sitter, to be made.Fred WaltonandSteve Fekeshot the short film over a span of three days. It didn’t gain the popularity that they wanted, but eventually, after talking about it as much as they could, they gained the backing to make a full-length film. Walton got the green light to direct the film and the Urban Legend continued to live on in horror history.
While the remake of the classic fell a little short among all the torture porn horror that was released at the time, the concept and intention were there. If the 2006 version ofWhen A Stranger Callshad an R rating, maybe it would’ve fared a bit better with audiences. Either way, both films solidified my desire to never answer any phone calls from numbers I don’t know.
