When A Stranger Calls

Doomed Babysitters.

Babysitters. On the horror movie food chain, babysitters fall somewhere between camp counselors and prostitutes. I babysat for a while in the 80s. Scariest thing that ever happened to me was the night I sat for two kids - a ten year old boy and his seven year old sister - and when I asked them what they wanted on their hot dogs, they both enthusiastically asked for mayonnaise. Mayonnaise. On their fucking hot dogs. Insert shudder of horror here.

By that time, I'd already seen the 1979 film When A Stranger Calls, and I'd see it a few more times as it popped up on TV now and again. But for some reason, I could never remember what the movie was about after the mucho famous twenty minute opener had concluded. I remember Charles Durning wandering around. I remember Colleen Dewhurst playing a blowsy barfly. That's about it.

So I went to Wal-Mart the other day. Look, I needed a new bra, don't judge me. Target never carries my size and all of their shit has underwire anyway. You ever try wearing an underwire bra when you have triple sized torpedoes like mine? It's like wrapping twine around a still growing melon. It hurts.

But that's not my point. On the rare occasions I am forced by poverty to go to Wal-Mart, I always check the DVD bargain bin. I rarely find anything good in it, but yesterday I scored: When A Stranger Calls, both the original and the remake, were on a double bill DVD for $3.50. Not the biggest or best score I've ever happened upon, but not bad either. So home I went with my new bra, my DVD and a spiffy new eyeliner pencil. Go me!

And today I watched both the original and the remake, back to back.
And now, I'm going to tell you about them both.

When A Stranger Calls (1979)

Starring: Carol Kane, Charles Durning, Tony Beckley, that mean-faced chick who was in Foul Play, Colleen Dewhurst, the other chick who played the mom in Amityville 2 and Ron "Super Fly" O'Neal.

 If you aren't familiar with the first half hour or so of this film, you are not a true horror fan. Teen babysitter Jill Johnson is terrorized by anonymous phone calls from a creepy guy who keeps asking her if she's checked the children. After calling the police and having Ma Bell tap her phone line, Jill learns that the calls are coming from inside the house. She narrowly escapes being murdered, but the kids have both been torn apart by psychopathic Curt Duncan, who is hauled off to jail and eventually incarcerated in an insane asylum.

Seven years later, Curt escapes and the father of the two children he butchered hires Charles Durning to find him and kill him. Meanwhile, Curt has found lodgings at a homeless shelter and tries unsuccessfully to hit on Colleen Dewhurst at a bar. Rebuffed and growing increasingly more deranged as his antipsychotic meds wear off, Curt goes looking for Jill once more, who is now married with two small children of her own.

This isn't a movie about the traumatized Jill at all, despite the fact that the film both begins and ends with her. This is a drama about a cop so disgusted by the crime he's had to clean up after that he justifies murder to himself. It also spends a good amount of time trying to make us understand the killer, a man who utterly despises himself and whose attempts to fit himself back into society and live a normal life are sadly doomed before they can even begin. Curt is a creep and everyone knows it, himself included. He exudes a thick, black, gelatinous aura from his every pore, and anyone with even the slightest bit of sensitivity recoils from him in disgust. It didn't hurt either that British actor Tony Beckley was cast as Curt. Beckley - who looks like a cross between John Hurt and that one guy who was in that one movie about Jack The Ripper whose title I can never remember, but he had really black eyes, anybody know which movie I'm talking about? - was literally dying when he played this role. Cause of death is listed as cancer, rumors say AIDS, but it doesn't matter. Beckley almost lets the disease play the part. He is walking death; pale and gaunt (even for a Brit), hollow eyed, he looks like a skeleton wrapped in rags. How he worked up the strength to run from Charles Durning through the city streets, and then body tackle Carol Kane in the climax, is beyond me.

And though Tony Beckley's performance as Curt Duncan is powerful and probably the best in the film, I think it's also where the film itself falls apart. Nobody wants to see a boogeyman reduced to a shivering pile of pathetic, whiny human failure. You don't want to identify with him, or pity him. He ripped two children apart with his bare hands. Sympathizing with him made me feel dirty, like an accomplice to his crimes.


When A Stranger Calls (2006)

Starring: Camille Belle, Tommy Flanagan, Lance Henriksen, Derek DeLint and some disposable, partying, irresponsible, miraculously acne-free teenagers.

So here we are in Remake-ville, and this time around, the filmmakers understood what worked in the original and what didn't. The entire second and third act were axed and the film instead became a full length phone call scene. However, it remains stubbornly faithful to the original in character names and throwaway scenes. The babysitter is again Jill Johnson, babysitting for the wealthy doctor Mandrakis and his socialite wife. The kids are already asleep when Jill arrives and are also just getting over a bad flu. A noisy ice maker and a discarded Popsicle are also echoes from the original, and the key exchange of dialogue between Jill and The Stranger is left intact: 

Jill Johnson: You really scared me, if that's what you wanted. Is that what you wanted?
Voice of the Stranger: No.
Jill Johnson: What do you want?
Voice of the Stranger: Your blood all over me.

Now here, I have to admit, I preferred the delivery in the original. Beckley's whisper and the pause he slips between "Your blood" and "all over me" the former of which is spoken almost reluctantly, the latter hissed with orgasmic eagerness. It was truly a blood chilling moment and the sight of the blood draining out of Carol Kane's face was probably real. It's a horrifying line, promising pain and pleasure, and I shiver with revulsion every single time I hear it.

Delivered in the remake by Lance Henriksen's distinctive purr, this line should have been every bit as chilling if not more so. But for whatever reason, someone decided that Lance should just deliver it flat, indifferently and bluntly, as if he were placing an order for a sandwich at the supermarket deli during a lunch rush. That line was meant to be savored by its speaker. It's foreplay. One can picture Beckley's Curt naked and blood lubed upstairs, probably jerking off as he speaks to Jill for the last time. One can imagine Lance doing no such thing. Shame really, because I think he could be the Ultimate Pervy Creep if given the opportunity.

The film stretches its original 20 minute premise out over an hour and a half and, at times, gets almost as boring as the entire first hour of House Of The Devil. Almost. A couple of distractions are thrown in: Jill's slutty friend Tiffany, the stereotypical Latina housekeeper Rosa, the family cat, etc. Then comes The Moment:

But we already know it's coming and so it falls flat. What started out as a tense drama turns into just another slasher film as Jill runs through the house, using various tools and appliances as weapons, barred from simply running out of the house by the small fact that the kids are still alive and need rescuing.

Lance Henriksen's role as The Voice is over and The Stranger drops down from the rafters. Suddenly having run out of things to say, he becomes Jason Voorhees and Michael Meyers, silent and slow, deliberately walking after the running Jill, knowing he will catch up to her because this is a slasher film.

Now, had this version gone off on a psycho tangent and told us who The Stranger is/was and what makes him tick, Tommy Flanagan might have been able to give the late Tony Beckley a run for his money. He's an intense actor, a slow burning, dark eyed smolder of a man. And those scars on his face? 100% real. You see, Flanagan is a Scottish actor, known for his roles in Gladiator, AVP and Sons Of Anarchy. Before that, he was a DJ in Glasgow who was attacked outside of a club late one night and given the trademark "Glasgow Smile" with a very sharp knife.

But no. Flanagan is reduced to a sexless slasher killing machine. He doesn't even get a cool mask. He doesn't even get to talk, possibly because his Scottish accent sounds nothing at all like Lance Henriksen. But hey, that would have been a cool twist - one guy makes the calls, the other does the dirty work? Just a thought.

And that's it kids. Both films had their flaws and successes, their strengths and weaknesses. Neither of them was perfect, but nor did they both outright suck.

They were both okay. The end.