CineNiche - When A Stranger Calls

Welcome back to Retro Flashback. Today we will be looking at Fred Walton's 1979 babysitter flick, When A Stranger Calls. Walton would find notoriety later in his career when he became known as “the director who killed the slasher film.” His lackluster 1986 release, April Fools Day put an end to the cycle of eighties slashers. Flashback to 1979, however, when Walton decided to transform his horrifying short film into a feature length movie focused on mental health issues. How does it rate in your pursuit of a proper horror education? Let's take a peak into a late seventies portrait of a mad man.

“Have you checked the children?”

Prologue:

Part of what makes When A Stranger Calls fascinating is the way it lifts its plot-line from an infamous urban legend. The line, “The call is coming from inside the house,” sends shivers down one's spine every time. Even though Bob Clark utilized the same line five years earlier in Black Christmas, it retains its terrifying effect here. The urban legend plays out over the course of the first twenty-three minutes of the film. Beyond those twenty-three minutes many people have trouble recalling much more of the film. When I first saw When A Stranger Calls, I thought: “Wait. What? How can there be more?” This is a great example of a film providing you all its scares up front and leaving no momentum for the rest of the narrative.

The first act is truly solid. We begin with Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) making her way to the Mandrakis' house to babysit. The Mandrakis' wealth and status are hinted at by their offer of some low-fat yogurt to Jill. Further evidence comes in the form of a bottle of Jameson that Jill drinks liberally and a basket filled with canes – because money, that's why. One may infer a connection between “cane” and “Carol Kate” of course. Jill is told the kids are asleep and have been getting over a cold – she is not to disturb them. When Jill is asked by her caller if she has checked the children, the answer is no, because she was told not to. While doing her homework and talking to her friend Nance about whether or not she should go out with Bobby, we are provided evidence that she truly is a teenage babysitter. If we had any question about this before, Walton makes sure to sate our curiosity. After receiving three phone calls from her inquisitive admirer, she takes shots of whiskey, and proceeds to call the police. Sgt. Sacker has been stuck with answering the phones and provides the best advice an uncaring cop can give. He says the caller is “probably just some weirdo, the city's full of them.” He tells Jill to find a whistle and blow hard. This seems glib at first, but ironically would have worked. The volume of the whistle may have blown the caller's eardrum and Jill would have heard his scream upstairs. In the end, it doesn't matter, as the scenario would have ended the same. The caller continues to ask why Jill hasn't checked the children. We know it's a good thing that she doesn't, because we've heard this story before, in the traditional telling of the tale. Finally, when the cop does his job, he calls back and lets her know... “The call is coming from inside the house.” The scene ends with the introduction of Lt. Clifford (Charles Durning). We learn the children are dead and the killer was a merchant seaman, English, who came to the states less than a week ago. The audience may be asking where the plot could go from there?

Seven Years Later

Lt. Clifford now works independently as a private investigator. We learn that the killer, Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley), has escaped from a minimum security state institution. Clifford meets with Dr. Mandrakis and through a not-so-subtle coded conversation, Clifford agrees to kill Duncan. The first stop on his investigation is the state mental institution. We learn that Curt had received electroshock therapy thirty-eight times and was prescribed a serious cocktail of pharmaceuticals. At this point we've come to terms that the rest of the film will be the pursuit of an escaped killer – intriguing enough, but hold on a second! We now see Curt at a bar and speculate perhaps this is the beginning of a killing spree with Clifford playing the part of Curt's Ahab. Got it, love it. Now we see Curt pathetically trying to pick up an older woman. Why do I feel bad for a child murderer; why the sympathy for this monster? While trying to talk to the woman, he gets beaten up, covered in booze, and dragged out of the bar. Humiliated and futile, just the way I like my killers!

“After what I've been through, I don't mind anything. See that's the whole point. My mind, your mind, where do they fit in? Do you see what I mean?” - Curt Duncan's guide to picking up women.

I don't see what you mean. When are you going to kill? He follows her home. We think, “This is it, he's going to snap and kill her for turning him down.! No, instead, she sees him standing in her hallway and apologizes for what happened. She completely disregards the fact that he must have creepily followed her in the shadows. We think, “He will kill her anyway!” No, wrong again, because he sits in her apartment and begs her to get coffee with him. What are you trying to attempt, Fred Walton?

I guess for every Frank Zito, Henry, or Patrick Bateman there has to be a few Curt Duncans. You feel sympathy for Curt, even while you are destined to never know why he slaughtered those children with his bare hands. His inability to fit into society is the catalyst for our sympathies. The plot may have felt less forced if he were released from the institution instead of escaping. Then we would have a perfect precursor for Carleton Hendricks's character in Dee Snider's Strangeland. What Curt Duncan represents is a patient whose treatments were working. After all, he slips back into his psychosis only after he is shunned by a woman and chased by a former cop. During Clifford's search for Duncan, the audience is privy to the only worthwhile scene of the second act. In all his pathetic glory, we see Curt Duncan standing naked in front of a mirror. He begins to remember all of the terrible things he's done. Mirrors seem to typically be used as a cheap short-cut to showing a character's self reflection. Later, when cornered by Clifford, Duncan simply surrenders. He actually wants help. Then Clifford throws a knife at him and all the hard work the psychologists achieved, is gone. All he is left with is a poem for a psychopath:

“No one can see me anymore. Nobody can hear me. No one touches me. I'm not here. I don't exist. I was never born. No one can see me anymore. Nobody can hear me. No one touches me. No one can hear me. I don't exist. I wasn't born.”

1 hour 16 minutes later

Remember Jill Johnson, this is a movie about Jill Johnson. As if the second act didn't exist, we pick up seven years later in Jill's life. She has a husband (I don't think it's Bobby from the prologue) and two kids of her own. Jill is, you guessed it, hiring a babysitter for the night. This time the babysitter isn't the one being harassed - Jill is, once again. This time she receives Curt's call at the restaurant. She exclaims:

“Curt Duncan has my babies!”

When they rush home, all is well. Although they forget to check the closet where Curt is hiding, that is okay, because he slips out and hides in Jill's bed. In the great scare of the film, we realize that Curt should have taken up ventriloquism (as the killer in the sequel does). He throws his voice into the bedroom closet and when we expect him to pop out, he instead comes out of the covers to attack. Luckily, Captain Ahab shows up with a gun. All is good - the kids are alive and so is the husband, though Jill may have years of psychoanalysis to recover. (she could just become a grief counselor at a college, another sequel hint). There, I spoiled the movie. As if it matters.

How does it rate:

I will admit that the first twenty-three minutes of When A Stranger Calls is a true landmark of horror cinema. It has everything from a retelling of an urban legend to masterful camerawork that effectively builds suspense. The timing is perfect and the use of Curt Duncan's shadow at the end of the sequence is brilliant. Then there is the rest of the film. Riding the coattails of Halloween would have been difficult for any film, but if you're going to lift elements from Carpenter's classic then pick the best ones. Walton uses babysitters, a killer escaping from an asylum, a heroic character who relentlessly pursues the killer, a lack of origin story explaining what made the badie kill in the first place, and a perfect opening sequence. However, he fails to keep the killer quiet and mysterious, and instead he gives us a pathetic psychopath. Due mainly to the inane fifty-three minutes of getting to know Curt Duncan I am forced to issue only an Associate's Degree.

Here's a breakdown of the categories:

True Landmark

Absolutely essential.

Certified Geek

For a more seasoned viewer.

Esoteric Necessity

Difficult to find, but worth the search.

PHD

You may begin prescribing horror.

Masters Degree

Cult cinema for higher education.

Bachelor's Degree

Horror snobs begin here.

Associate's Degree

Shot well with a few scares.

Trade School Certificate

One or two learning moments.

Copycat Junk

There's no point.

Scraping The Bottom

When there's nothing else.