When a Stranger Calls, 1979
Jill (Carol Kane) is babysitting one night when she gets a string of disturbing phone calls asking her if she has "checked the children". As Jill grows increasingly freaked out--and increasingly frustrated by the way that her fears are brushed aside at first when she calls the police--it soon becomes clear that these are more than prank calls and the evening ends in tragedy. Years later, the perpetrator is back on the streets. A detective who worked on the original crime, John Clifford (Charles Durning) is determined to track him down. Jill--now an adult and with a family of her own, may be in the crosshairs again.
This is an iconic horror that I had just never quite gotten around to, despite it having some very prominent narrative elements (such as the man's voice over the phone asking "Have you checked the children?"). While I generally found that the film's structure and pace were a little odd, I felt that the number of genuine shocks and unpleasant tension more than made up for a funky narrative progression.
The film can be divided roughly into thirds. The first third involves the single setting of the house and Jill dealing with the phone calls. The middle third follows Clifford as he pursues the escaped perpetrator. And the final third brings us full circle to Jill.
The middle third--Clifford's pursuit of the escaped man--lasts the longest and is probably the least compelling of the three parts. There is some emotional heft from a decision that Clifford makes early on. He decides that he will kill the man if he finds him, in order to prevent more harm. This section also tries to develop the character of the escaped perpetrator, a man named Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley). Beckley is good in the role. The actor was actually terminally ill while he was filming, and whether the desperate look of the character was just good acting or a bit of real life bleeding in, who can say? I did appreciate that the film makes it clear that Duncan is in a lot of psychological pain and that he is suffering. He's not a one-liner cracking slasher villain. At the same time, the portrayal of this man in horrible anguish doesn't totally square with the way that the film presents him at both the beginning and the end of the film, which is as someone very calculating and cruel.
The beginning scenes with Jill babysitting are probably the most relatable. I imagine everyone has had a time that they were alone and something unsettled them and then everything all at once took on a menacing air. I really liked the way that Jill behaves in these scenes. While she at first assumes it is a prank, as soon as she realizes it isn't she contacts the police. And even after they sort of rebuff her, she calls back. I was like, man, good for her! Because Jill has stayed in the living room the whole time--having been given directions by the parents not to disturb the kids--the house takes on an ambiguous vibe. Is it a fortress of safety? Or is it a cage in which she is trapped with the caller? Kane does a good job of showing the different stages of her character: annoyance, then trying not to be scared, then giving into her fear to call for help, and so on. The way that this whole sequence ends is shocking and filled with tension.
The final third is what feels like it gets short shrift. I did really appreciate the way that the characters around Jill respond when the killer calls her again. She freaks out--and her husband apologizes for her "hysterics"--but also the police do respond and take her seriously. But I wish that the film had taken longer to sit with this piano that has just been dropped on Jill. From the time she gets the call, there are like 15 minutes left in the film. What did Jill go through all those years? How did she ever become comfortable leaving her kids alone with a babysitter? Because there is so little time, Jill is reduced to mostly broader hysterics and the final act lacks the slow build and tension of the first third. Now, that said, there are still some really shocks to be had in that final act. The film's shift from Jill to Clifford is, in my opinion, a mistake. But the ending still mostly manages to satisfy.
While this feels like a moderately positive review, the film does get an extra half point or so for some of the casually disturbing elements it manages to drop in there, like the remark that
WARNING: spoilers below
the coroner wanted to know what weapon Duncan used to kill the children, and could not comprehend that he did all that damage with just his hands
the coroner wanted to know what weapon Duncan used to kill the children, and could not comprehend that he did all that damage with just his hands
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