When A Stranger Calls is a scary movie about a teen babysitter who gets stalked by a madman. First he engages her in creepy phone calls and then he tries to kill her.
And that’s it. That’s all there is.
Surrounding this 90-second concept is all manner of wind and rain and shadow and angsty music and things that go bump in the night. In other words, nothing. And here’s the punchline: When A Stranger Calls is not only nothing, it’s a remake of nothing. The original film was made in 1979.
Camilla Belle stars in When A Stranger Calls as Jill, a teenager grounded for over-using her cellphone. The film opens with grisly murders in a nearby town. Jill takes a babysitting gig with people she doesn’t really know. They have two children. They go out for dinner. They leave a long list of important phone numbers and then proceed to turn off their cellphones. Uh, huh. A madman starts phoning the house. Jill walks from room to room. It’s dark-ish. Things make noises. Woooooo!!!!
Oh! Whew. It’s just the cat.
Oh! Whew. It’s just the housekeeper.
Oh! Whew. It’s just the sprinkler.
Oh! Whew. It’s just a friend.
Oh! Whew. It’s just birds in the garden
Oh! Whew. It’s just the wind.
Oh! Whew. It’s just another teenaged moviegoer who is willing to spend $10 to see bad moviemaking.
When A Stranger Calls is the sort of thriller outing that leaves several questions unanswered.
How, for example, did the garage door get opened without the burglar alarm going off? For that matter, who has better eyebrows — Camilla Belle or Canadian actress Katie Boland of Terminal City?
And now that we’ve told you that When A Stranger Calls is an exercise in mediocre filmmaking consisting mostly of padding and filler, can we stop typing?
bottom line
No plot, no originality, no stars — and no reason for you to go and see this crap.
