Review of When a Stranger Calls (1979)

Introduction

1979 wasn`t a good year for babysitters: Jamie Lee Curtis was introduced to her brother Michael in Halloween, Amy Wright was locked in a closet in The Amityville Horror and Carol Kane was menaced by a psychotic stranger!

As with many films including The Amityville Horror, When a Stranger Calls has recently been remade which makes a new audience aware of the original films. It`s this point that leads to remakes being a mixed blessing: on one hand they are largely inferior to the originals, but on the other, those who weren`t alive in the 70s might not have been aware that the film is a remake, so will be tempted to seek out the original.

Video

The 1.33:1 fullscreen transfer is no better than VHS quality with a distinct lack of clarity, particularly in the darker scenes.

Audio

The only soundtrack available is a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track, which is largely free from distortion and the dialogue is pretty clear.

Conclusion

The first act of When a Stranger Calls is very well done, Carol Kane is a realistic babysitter although her actions following the phone calls are perhaps odd, but given that few, if any, people have been in the same situation, it`s hard to judge.

Director Fred Walton plays with the tension beautifully so that when twenty minutes have elapsed, he firmly has your attention and you are just waiting for him to crank it up. Unfortunately he doesn`t and when the nightmare is over, nothing much happens until the very end of the film when Carol Kane reappears and the stranger calls again. The intervening period is one in which the stranger, following his escape from a mental institution, wanders the streets of Los Angeles with John Clifford, the cop who caught him and now a private investigator, hot on his heels.

When a Stranger Calls is arguably the weakest of the major films from 1979 in which the babysitter is terrorised, but the first act alone almost makes the film worth watching. The Amityville Horror was remade in 2005 and Halloween has had numerous sequels, culminating in 1998`s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. If you`ve seen the remake of When a Stranger Calls and wonder how it compares to the original then you should definitely watch this, otherwise the first act is worth twenty minutes of your time, whether you decide to see it to the end or not.