Customer Reviews

When a Stranger Calls

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(26)
1 star:		(44)

 

 

Another in a long line of remakes, "When A Stranger Calls" tells the story of a young baby-sitter and her two charges tormented by a madman. This is your standard omnipresent evildoer--he can be anywhere at anytime with no basis in logic. In fact, one scene involving the guest house--he's practically in two places at once! Apparently he stalks young women (so the film tells us)--however this baby-sitter was hired at the last minute, so I'm not sure how he targeted this house in the middle of nowhere and knew the owners would be going out. Quite frankly, with a live-in maid--I'm not quite sure why they hired a baby-sitter they didn't know to sit their kids who were already fast asleep. Rosa, the maid, seemed nice enough--surely she wouldn't have minded the extra bit of bother. But let's not dwell.

In truth, there's nothing wrong with the idea of remaking "When A Stranger Calls." While I'm not a huge fan of remakes, the original movie certainly had ample opportunities for improvement. All anyone remembers from the Carol Kane film are the first twenty minutes. But those twenty minutes are classic suspense and hugely effective. Unfortunately, the remainder of the film devolved into a rather routine police procedural. This updating sought to isolate the scenario from the beginning of that movie and expand it to feature length. However, that becomes a little trickier when technology has improved so vastly in the last 25 years. Home phones are almost obsolete these days in the era of cell phones, Internet, text messages, etc.--not to mention features on the phone like Caller ID and Blocking.

But anyway, we'll set all that aside for now. The technological improbability is the least of this film's issues. More to the forefront is a complete lack of originality. Seriously this movie is about 30 minutes of one sided telephone conversations, 30 minutes of being frightened in dark rooms by innocuous sounds, 15 minutes of unnecessary and unsuccessful character development, and 15 minutes of confrontation. The telephone interchanges are so tedious--she must answer the phone 40 times and never once does someone just say "Hi" right off the bat. The creeping around in the dark is so familiar--the cat scares her on more than one occasion (the most overused thriller cliche in existence). When we get to the big confrontation, it's absolutely routine. No one is required to be ingenious, heroic, or otherwise noteworthy--it's all run and cry. The kids are particularly hysterical--they don't have one line in the film, they just blubber.

Absolutely unnecessary in every way, this isn't even the least bit fun. Camilla Belle is an interesting actress (with interesting eyebrows). She has chosen fascinating roles before--I particularly liked "The Ballad of Jack and Rose." I only hope she doesn't get caught in the bad horror movie cycle many other young actors seem to be trapped in. Pass this one up. KGHarris, 11/06.

Typical teen Jill Johnson has gone over her mobile phone bill and must make up the money to pay for it, thus why she baby sits for a rich family. Everything's go perfectly, the kids in bed, the alarm system activated... She settles down for a boring night...... But then... The phone rings.... A series of anonymous terrifying phone calls escalate until the stranger asks her "Have you checked the children lately?"

The events that unfold are truly terrifying....


This Film Is.... Absolutely amazing!!!!!

This would have to be without a doubt the best horror movie I have seen in a long time, the movies success is thanks to the amazing brunette Camilla Belle who plays the protagonist Jill Johnson (The Patriot), she gives an outstanding performance of the terrified victim. A refreshing change from the cliché blonde victim.

Based on one of the scariest of all urban legends 'The Babysitter and the man upstairs" this film is extremely suspenseful and will have you on the edge of your seat until the closing credits and last SURPRISE!

I extremely recommend this film to everyone, it's scary without making you feel sick at how scary it was. Amazing time and effort went into making it and this can be seen through extravagant surroundings (the house she baby sits at is UNBELIEVABLE!)and lighting is equally brilliant.

Plenty of scares and thrills in this!!!! Belle's acting is brilliant and your yearning for her to be ok...

Sit back and enjoy....

But whatever you do, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE!

When I was getting ready to watch this film I was bracing myself for a crapfest. I was very surprised that I didn't hate it. Granted, it won't wow anyone unless you're a teenage girl who has never watched a horror film, but it provides enough entertainment to serve as a likable midnight horror flick. I think people criticize this film more than it deserves. Even if you hate it you can't deny that this film is a big cut above atrocious remakes like Prom Night and The Wicker Man (Hands down, the worst of the remakes I've witnessed thus far).
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Jill Johnson is a teenage girl going through troubles recently. Her boyfriend cheated on her and it turns out she ran up a large cell phone bill. So her parents force her to babysit for a rich family who just so happen to live in the middle of nowhere (Yes this film has stupid little inconsistencies and cliches). The family she is babysitting is fairly nice and let Jill do pretty much whatever she wants. She mostly explores the house since the children are sleeping, but then she starts getting strange phone calls. At first the voice doesn't say anything, but after a few phone calls, the caller poses the question, "Have you checked the children?" Jill panics of course and checks, but the children are unharmed and the phone calls continue. But then she realizes the caller can see her and then it becomes a fight for survival against a killer.
MUSIC: The music fits the horror mood as it should, and I really have no gripes against it.
ACTING: Mixed. Some actors do a fairly good job, while others just plain suck. Camilla Belle's performance I felt was decent and nowhere near as bad as people said it was. While the acting wasn't great, there were enough decent performances to hold it together.
ACTION: Most of the film takes place in the house and the main character wandering around trying to find out where the calls were coming from. I have to admit this is what made the film work for me, and I have to applaud the film for going for realism. This is certainly not a fast-paced film, but it instead wants to build suspense and tension. I must say that it actually pulls it off pretty well. I wasn't scared, but it set up rather effective scenes (Especially near the end). I am also pleased to say that I was never really bored either.
OVERALL: I know a lot of people hate this film so I'm going to say this should be a cautionary rental. It provides enough entertainment to keep itself afloat and manages to be enjoyable. While I highly doubt it's better than the 1979 original, it gets the job done and works fairly well as a suspense/horror flick. It won't blow you away, but it's certainly better than some of the other remakes to choose from.
THE GOOD: Good music, some decent actors, a good setup of suspense and tension, great set design, and I liked how this film aims for a realistic approach.
THE BAD: Horror film cliches, some bad actors, and it doesn't feel fully realized.

"When a Stranger Calls"



"We've traced the call it's coming from inside the house." Dead silence. Just think, someone watching you without you or anybody else even knowing. That's exactly what happened to Jill Johnson when a babysitting job went out of hand. This was more than just earning money for going over 800 minutes on her cell phone, this was dead torture. Jill was a normal high school girl with all the boyfriend issues and what not. After having a huge fight with her boyfriend and him costing her all of her minutes, her parents told her that she had to make her own money and she thought that babysitting would be the perfect job. The fridge was stocked and the TV was there with all the billions of channels. It was perfect, and to top it all of, the kids were dead asleep. But all of this ended when the perfect babysitting job went haywire. The phone rings, "Have you checked the children?"
This was a horror movie out of hand. This PG-13 movie was my kind of movie. This movie kept me on the edge of my seat and begging for more. The first time I watched this movie was at midnight and when it was over, the phone rang, I nearly had a heart attack! But from now on, I guess you can say that im not babysitting for a while.
This is not a move for babysitters, and if you are one, and you watch this movie, you will never want to baby-sit ever again. I also wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone under the age of 12 for terror and violence.


Christina Rich

Please don't listen to all these bad reviews this is a great movie and expirience to watch. It was so good that even my grandma liked it. well anyways watch it and then say what you think. That is why I gave it a five star.

If you go see this keep in mind it's not oscar material we're dealing with here.The plot is interesting and Camilla Belle is going to go far in hollywood. It's a slasher movie without a abundance of blood and gore. It begins with the babysitter's dad taking her to the house. It's a beautiful house owned by a rich couple. About midway through the phone starts ringing and she keeps recieving calls asking if she's checked the children lately.

So here I am, writing another review of a remake of another classicl horror/thriller film. The lack of originality in Hollywood these days is really mind-numbing. There aren't that many good remakes out there these days, but this is one of the few exceptions to that rule.

Jill Johnson is a grounded teenager who is being forced to babysit on a weekend night to pay off the balance of a cell phone bill that apparently went way over the amount of limited minutes. Having just broken up with her boyfriend, and now having to miss the big bonfire party, Jill is understandably upset, as any high school girl would be. She arrives at the house of the doctor she is babysitting for, and is told that the children are sick and already asleep. Everything is normal for a few hours, then the creepy phone calls commence, and from that point on, the movie takes off. The thrills and tense moments in the last half hour of When A Stranger Calls are some of the best I've had in a movie theater in quite a while. The atmosphere is perfect. The house is cool, but still very creepy, with many amenities that provide ways to creep out the viewer (motion-sensitive lights help some moments out a lot). Overall, the entire feel of the film is just very creepy, and this is good, because that's why I see a film like this, to be creeped out, or thrilled, or whatever.

One of the best things about the film is that it doesn't try to do anything more than is absolutely necessary to further the peril of the babysitter. We are given a minimal amount of setup, and, aside from a brief introduction to the film's villain, we pretty much get right down to business with the basica storyline. Girl is babysitting in creepy house. Girl gets creepy phone calls. Strange perpetrator tries to kill girl. What more can you ask for?

Surprisingly, I actually thought that the acting in the film was very good. The only character that appears that much is Jill, and the actress who plays her does a very good job. In fact, it was the least cliched and best-acted performance I'd seen from a female horror lead in a long time. The actor who plays the caller isn't ever really seen that much, but he is sufficiently creepy, and the cinematography on him is great, especially with the use of shadows to conceal his face for most of the final, thrilling sequence.

When A Stranger Calls probably isn't as good as the original. I wouldn't know, I've never seen the old version, but I do know that that remake isn't just some cheap slasher flick for teens, it's actually a well set up, efficient exercise in thrills and tension for the moviegoers.

Some people may not agree, but i loved every bit of this movie. it's definatley my kind of movie!

I saw this in the theatre and I don't know why everyone gave it bad reviews. I like this scary movie because it's creepy, but not gorey. When I got home at about 3 am after seeing this movie and the house was dark, I got creeped out. So it worked well. I think people are too hard on movies and need to lighten up and just enjoy them.

"The phone calls are coming from inside the house!" I don't think I ruined the movie for anyone, because that line of dialog was used in the 1979 original. Yes, what we have here is yet another remake that comes nowhere near the original in quality, and shows Hollywood's well of creativity has certainly run dry.

Why, oh, why didn't I use Hollywood's reasoning when I did my highschool and college papers? I could have simply copied my friends' original term papers and called it an updated remake. It certainly would have made my life easier, but my conscience reminded me that cutting corners in such a way would only reinforce that I couldn't think for myself.

And so we have today's Hollywood: Why bother with putting forth any effort? Let's just shamelessly take a classic and do it again for a new generation! Yeah! It'll me new to the teen age audiences who we assume are too dense to know about the original, right? And we'll gleefully take their money and reward them with a subpar "update" on the original.

Here's the plot of the updated version. Jill Johnson gets in trouble for going 800 minutes over on the family's cell phone share plan. Her punishment? Babysitting.

So to fufill her punishment, grumpy Dad takes his daughter over to the home of the wealthy parents to watch their presumably wild kids, currently sick with the flu. She gets the run of the house and is told to disregard any noise upstairs because it's Rosa the maid.

The parents leave and our generic heroine starts looking around the house. Chester the housecat provides a few false scares, as does Rosa, the noisy maid.

A few phone calls come in, but it's Jill's friends calling to prank her. Besides these pesky phone calls, disposable friend #1 shows up to razz Jill about her babysitting job, and how it was no big deal that she kissed the guy Jill likes.

Whatever.

Disposable friend #1 somehow managed to make it through the locked front gate, as well as the alarm system, yet she's not crafty enough to hold onto her keys or drive over a stick blocking the once easily accessed gate. Here she meets her end, and the world is a sadder place.

More false scares ensure, the phone calls continue, and Jill realizes that the calls are coming from within the house. Then the caller shows up and chases Jill and the kids all over the house, into the pond, into the guest house, and back through the main house.

It turns out that the caller is some serial killer that managed to target this high end neighborhood. What's his background and his motivation? They don't tell us, and I guess it really doesn't matter anyhow.

If memory serves, Jill slams a fireplace poker into his hand, trapping him in the living room. The police show up and take him away.

My time would have been better spent watching a dung beetle roll a turd for an hour and a half. I pray to all the is holy that there is never, ever a sequel to this waste of time.