When a Stranger Calls (1979)

 

When a Stranger Calls (1979)

This was probably the first film to exploit the popularity of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” (1978) but distinguished itself be standing outside the quickly emerging Slasher sub-Genre, earning better reviews and staking out a more respectable place (at least initially) than the film it was riding the coat-tails of.

The film was also hurt by what is what I love about it the most, its switch narrative tone three times and solidly grounding itself in two genres -- Horror (obviously) and then a more realistic Crime Thriller, and then back to Horror again. I loved that the transitions were executed smoothly, and that the middle section featured complex Character development, but that section was what most other Critics enjoyed the least. The first fifteen minutes were unbearably suspenseful and still considered classic among Horror films. When it stopped being a Horror film, many of the film’s fans tuned out. But since its initial release, those exquisite first fifteen have been so mimicked and beaten to death that they don’t carry the same weight as they once did, while that middle section is just as good as it always was.

A little background first.

An Italian sub-Genre of Horror, called the Giallo, was essentially created by Mario Bava with films like “Blood and Black Lace” (1964). Basically, these were Crime movies, obviously influenced in their plotting by Agatha Christie and Cornell Woodrich, but adding far more sex and violence to justify themselves for the Horror market, and notable for their shamelessly convoluted stories that were largely beside the point, because the point was the body count; but even the body-count was not the main point, just an excuse to sell the opulent style and inventive technique. The Giallo was an intersection where Exploitation met with Film-for-Film’s-Sake. The Giallos were often ridiculous, but I must admit, I love almost all of them.

A notable element of many Giallos was an obsession with communications technologies, notably telephones.

When the Giallo came to North America, it stylistically toned down, and intellectually dumbed down, becoming the Slasher film. The first true slasher was Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas” (1974), in which every single element of this newly emerging sub-genre was laid out, and had an impressive piece of telephone paranoia.

The film had many admirers in the Horror community, dismissed by Critics, and, though successful, not enough so to be a phenomenon. The sub-Genre didn’t really take hold until the amazing success of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” (1978) which shared so many very specific similarities with “Black Christmas” it should surprise no one that in its initial stages of development there was consideration of making “Halloween” a direct sequel to “Black Christmas.” “Halloween” even features a tiny little bit of telephone paranoia.

After that came Sean Cunningham’s “Friday the 13th” (1980) which codified all the sub-Genre’s essential elements into dreary Clichés, annoys the hell out of me, and doesn’t even have a decent telephone scene.

“When a Stranger Calls” appeared in between “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th,” and is neither Giallo or Slasher for a whole host of reasons, for example: its body count is too low and there is virtually no blood (the most awful violence was off-screen).

Also, obviously, telephone paranoia is not exclusive to the Gaillo or Slasher sub-Genres. This technology that is supposed to connect us often reinforces our sense of isolation and makes us vulnerable to unseen threats. Ever since Lucille Fletcher’s radio play, “Sorry, Wrong Number” (1948), clever script writers have use the distortions of our relationships tied to that technology to scare the crap out of us.

“When a Stranger Calls,” Directed and co-Written by Fred Walton, and clearly borrows from “Black Christmas” but has stronger roots in the older, popular, urban myth of “The Babysitter and the man upstairs” which was likely inspired by the real-world and still unsolved murder of a 13-year-old Babysitter named Janett Christman in 1950. It seems that the myth was first incorporated into cinema in a short film called, “Foster’s Release” (1971), which I haven’t seen, but was apparently popular in Home-Economics Classes because it taught young girls how fulfilling domestic responsibilities protected them from Serial Killers.

Director Walton’s first version of this story was his short film, “The Sitter” (1977), and “When a Stranger…” was an expansion on that. When “When a Stranger …” it hit the theatres, it was just barely early enough that the idea hadn’t been completely beaten to death yet. Walton must be credited for doing something bold, he didn’t hopelessly pad the tight, economical, shock piece, but carried the story forward across almost decade and placed it in a larger context.

Basic set up:

Babysitter Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) gets repeated annoying phone calls with a creepy male voice saying, “Have you checked the children?” She calls the Police, but everyone gets annoying phone calls, the Police say. Later she complains again, and finally the calls are traced, and they turn out to be originating at the very house she's in.

That’s the film’s first act, which the film is justly famous for. More popular Horror Director Wes Craven opens his now classic deconstruction of the Slasher sub-genre, “Scream” (1996), with a homage to these fifteen minutes, but now the teenage target (Drew Barrymore) is not a Babysitter, has a cell phone, and some martial arts skills.

But back to this movie: We now jump forward seven years and the Manic and Child-Killer, Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley), has escaped from his confinement in a Mental Hospital. The Detective that arrested him during the first case, John Clifford (Charles Durning), had retired from the force and is now a Private Eye, and is employed to hunt Curt down.

A notable aspect of the film’s second act is that Curt, though still repugnant, also becomes sympathetic. This, I thought, was one of the more impressive aspects of the film, but continues to put-off Horror fans even in the contemporary reviews I’ve read. Horror fans seem to prefer their stalking Killers as ambiguous shapes that solidify into Superhuman Boogiemen, this is evident in both the “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” franchises. As the film starts presenting the Monster a Human, it also denies the mostly young and male audience the vicarious identification with a faceless figure who is as much a Voyeur as they. In almost all Giallos and Slashers, the audience watches through the Killer’s eyes as he gets closer-and-closer to one half-naked and interchangeable female victim after another. “When a Stranger …” is having none of this; when the scare fest of the first act is over, the Killer becomes and actual Character, and all the Stalkings are shot in a manner to encourage identification with the Prey, not the Predator.

There’s a well-written scene wherein Character John listens to a tape recording of one of Curt’s Therapy Sessions; as obvious as Curt’s the boiling rage was, it is equally obvious that the rage is born of knowing he’s broken, hating the hell out of it, and projecting outward at others because that’s the only way he knows to cope with his own powerlessness against himself and the world.

After this, Curt takes center stage, and he’s as far from Superhuman as they come, he’s just a sad vagrant. He is desperate for the human connection that he’s too sick to earn or cope with. Even when his social idiocy provokes a brutal beating, he keeps doing the same, sad, lonely, creepy, things; clearly, he’s even more used to being victimized than he is in creating victims. Actor Beckley is as heart-rending in the role of evil Curt; though he never obtained the same stardom as this film’s other leads, he was none-the-less a much-respected in England. The Actor was terminally ill as he played this role, and you can see his frailness, and it has an impact.

Character Jill disappears from the film for a while as Curt focuses on middle-aged barfly, Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst) who unwisely takes pity on him. She’s given little back-story, but it is written on her face is that her tenuous generosity toward Curt is rooted in how many have mistreated her in the past.

This scenario puts me in mind of another fictional Serial Killer, Francis Dolarhyde, from Thomas Harris’ novel “Red Dragon” (1981) and its film adaptations “Manhunter” (1986) and “Red Dragon” (2002), and how devastating it was for the audience when Dolarhyde’s Paranoias explode his only chance for love, a chance we knew was doomed the moment it was introduced because we already knew what Monster he was.

This film is more concerned with the ripple-effects of Violence than setting-up more Violence. There is only an implied back-story for Curt, he was the consequence of an Evils against him before he became an Evil himself. As for John, during his hunt for Curt, we see this case has begun to eat away at his soul. He’s no longer a Cop, but a Vigilante, and dangerously manipulates Tracy to set a trap for Curt. And then there’s Tracy, obviously distrustful of men, and, interestingly, as suspicious of John as she was Curt, but never-the-less opened her door to both.

After John bungles the trap and Curt escapes, there’s a chilling scene wherein Curt radically decompensates. This sets up the film’s final act, and the reintroduction of Character Jill, no longer a teenage Babysitter, but married with her own children, and about to become a primary target for Curt’s madness again.

The whole Cast is excellent, but Actress Dewhurst is far and beyond the best of a very fine lot. The toxicity between Durring and Beckley, who spend very little time on screen together, is also potent. As for Kane, cast not once, but twice, as the victim in the same film, somehow manages to give her Character a personal agency than many other Actresses in the same position couldn’t have under the same circumstances. Kane would become one of the USA’s most beloved Comedic Actress, most forgetting she started her career as a Dramatic Actress, earning her only Oscar nomination for Hester Street” (1975) and repeatedly appearing in Horror films.

Despite his accomplishment here, Fred Walton has remained a minor director. He was mostly regulated to Thrillers about Psychos and most of them TV movies, so obviously limiting, and he rarely had a script this sophisticated to work with, even on those occasions that he wrote it himself. He did make a charming, though clumsy, Parody of the Slasher sub-Genre “April Fool’s Day” (1986) and the criminally under-appreciated “The Rosary Murders” (1987), which weirdly, but surprisingly successfully, integrated the hunt for a Serial Killer with an examination of the turmoil within the Catholic Church. On the other hand, his wholly unnecessary sequel to his biggest hit, “When a Stranger Calls Back” (1993), was illogical, uninspired, and only suspenseful in the most mechanical sense. Worse still was “The Stepford Husbands” (1996) which was the saddest contribution to the “The Stepford Wives” franchise (first, and best, film 1975).

This film also marked the feature-film debut of cinematographer Donald Peterman who would go onto greater prominence than Walton, including an Oscar nomination.

Also, worth noting is the surprisingly subtle percussion and string score by Dana Kaproff, a talent who, like Walton, got plenty of work but still seemed under-appreciated. He had a few more movies, mostly bad, but tons of TV. He reunited with Walton’s remake of “I Saw What You Did” (original 1968, remake 1988), another Telephone Paranoia movie, just not a good one.

“When a Stranger …” also had a risible remake (2003) which I don’t believe Walton had much to do with. The remake ignores everything that made the original interesting to me, but instead tried to stretch those first, famous, fifteen-minutes across and 87-minute feature. Savaged by critics, this trash was still a money maker and there was talk of a sequel.

 

Trailer:

When a Stranger Calls (1979) Trailer