| When a Stranger Calls | 
 enlarge | Director: Simon West
Actors: Camilla Belle, Tommy Flanagan, Katie Cassidy, Tessa Thompson, Brian Geraghty
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy Used: $0.01
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Avg. Customer Rating:  166 reviews
Sales Rank: 9158
Format: Full Screen, Closed-captioned, Color
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 87
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: COLD14510D
UPC: 043396145108
EAN: 0043396145108
ASIN: B000F6IOAM
Theatrical Release Date: February 3, 2006
Release Date: May 16, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Includes DVD, Case, cover Art. Might have minor scratches. Does not affect playback. We offer FAST shipping & Great Customer Support!!
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The smartest thing about the remake of When a Stranger Calls is that it strips the original 1979 version to its bare essentials as a primal exercise in stormy-night terror. While taking the original film's suspenseful first act and expanding it into an 87-minute cat-and-mouse game, screenwriter Jake Wade Wall adds a few clever updates involving cellphones and home-security services, as well as the maze-like menace of a lavish modern home that serves as the setting for mayhem when cute teenager Jill (Camilla Belle, in the role originated by Carol Kane) takes on a babysitting job that she may live to regret. Someone is stalking her in the big, expensive glass palace that her employers call home (a splendid set designed by Jon Gary Steele), and that creepy voice on the phone (belonging to Lance Henriksen, master of doom-laden threat) should've been her first clue to grab the pair of terrified kids she's supposed to be protecting and leave the house ASAP. But no, the script, the overwrought score, and the uninspired direction of Simon West (Con-Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) insist that poor Jill be put through a Halloween-like night from hell, complete with a black cat as an omen of nasty things to come. Kudos to Wall and West for attempting to generate horror through suggestion (by keeping the homicidal stalker mostly off-screen), but let's face it: the original film is hardly a classic (its TV-movie sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back, is considerably better), and the remake takes too long to yield minimal rewards. Maybe Jill should've just unplugged the phone. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 161 more reviews...
When A Stranger Hits Redial November 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"What are you going to do tonight?" a friend of mine asked.
"I'm going to watch a movie, an old scary one. When a Stranger Calls. It's supposed to be good."
"Is that the one with the babysitter?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen it."
"Yeah. I know that one. It's famous, right? It's the one where you find out he's calling -- "
"Shut up shut up shut up! I don't want to know anything about it. I like to go in fresh."
So I went in fresh, and ten minutes in, I realized that I already knew the creepy twist. And if you've been told at least three campfire tales in your life, I'd wager odds that you know the twist, too. Even if you've never seen the movie in question.
That's not so bad. The first twenty minutes of the original manage to be tense without trying the patience. The elfin Carol Kane stars as a babysitter named Jill who finds her night plagued with strange phone calls. The caller never says much, but what he does say (voiced with fragile menace by the late Tony Beckley) can melt the nerves. It's the kind of powerful scene that is usually found at the climax of a movie.
And therein lies the problem.
WHEN THE STRANGER CALLS (1979) has a neat idea, but nothing to go with it. After the First Act scare, the movie becomes philosophical and ponderous. The camera follows two men: Charles Durning as the dispeptic private detective John Clifford and our resident serial killer, Curt Duncan. "He's from England."
It's not unheard of for a "horror" movie (that's where you'll find this title shelved, but the genre is misapplied) to reveal some of the basic humanity of its villain, but this flick goes a step further and exposes his tenderest vulnerabilities. He is made more human, brittler, his actual madness becomes a place for pity. All of this while Clifford pursues him with squinty-eyed persistence and a lock needle in his pocket. (If you've never heard of a lock needle before, it is a long, pointy thing that you would never, ever want to carry in your pocket.)
Trying to reverse the roles like that -- murderer becomes society's whipping boy versus the man trying to get vengence beyond the law -- makes for an interesting social studies lesson. But it's not hard to get the picture within the first fifteen minutes, and yet there are roughly forty more to go. After this, the finale is a welcome burst of energy, but it doesn't linger with quite the smack that the intro offers.
Certainly a movie that could use some renovation, right? So thought Simon West, whose directorial debut was Con Air. And thus a remake was born.
Watching the remake immediately after the original might have been a bad idea, but it did make a few things very clear to me.
First of all, West must've been aware of the first film's shortcomings, because he only sticks to what worked for the original: the first twenty minutes. Granted, the first twenty minutes would make a GREAT episode of The Twilight Zone (I could've sworn it already was), but a feature-length movie? Errrmmmm.
And there's the unfortunate part. West's re-do steals some scene direction and a lot of lines from the original. But to pad the film out, he has added the tricky maze of a doctor's absurdly large house, along with all of the doctor's weird gadgetry (automatic lights, a greenhouse built in the center of the house, a remote controlled fireplace). He also gives us a few unnecessary characters (a ridiculous visit from a friend and a live-in maid ... why are these people hiring a babysitter if they have a live-in maid?). This plus a very fragile sub-plot involving jogging.
West moves fast once the movie has finally exhausted it's key line ("He's calling **** ****** *** *****!"), which is wise. It gets a little awkward when the kids get involved, but only because they are such poor actors that West films them mostly in obscurity and gives them no lines whatsoever. And whereas the first film shows the killer in a shadowless spotlight, West keeps him as murky as his voice, this time around the over-done gravel of Lance Henriksen. It's a predictable trade-off, and it has predictably mediocre results.
It's a movie that knows what it has going for it. Even after fullfilling the necessary wrap-up, though, West can't resist one last stinger, a completely unnecessary but totally understandable last moment zing that, of course, concludes with the greatest thing about either of these movies:
"HE'S CALLING ...
No. I'm not going to be the one to spoil it for you.
 great service October 20, 2008
fast service, I ordered this product and another product the same day and I recieved this product first. movie was in perfect condition.
Great thriller August 19, 2008
This is a great thriller that will keep you at the edge of your seat. A good one to watch to have a little fear while taking a break from blood and gore.
Eh, could have been better, was a tame movie (includes a Spoiler) May 30, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Not a bad movie, it kept me in suspense the entire time wondering when the killer would show up, and so I won't say it was an entire waste of my time to watch, but it could have been better. Maybe it's because this movie is rated PG-13, so not much they can do horror-wise to scare the audience, and as a PG-13 suspense/horror movie it was okay.
Jill is a high school teen who unfortunately ran up the minutes on her cell phone, and in punishment she has to work to pay it off, so she gets a baby-sitting job.
The family lives out in the middle of nowhere, off a lake in a huge house with lots of glass windows (floor-to-ceiling). Very nice place, and very isolated and I thought the scenery and location was very effective in adding to the suspenseful atmosphere of the movie.
Throughout the night she begins to get strange phone calls, heavy breathing or creepy remarks from a strange man. At first, she puts it off as prank calls, but as they increase in frequency and creepiness, she beings to get fearful of who is calling her and why.
Okay, I will say this movie did keep me glued to the TV wondering when the killer would show up and why he was stalking Jill and playing this phone game with her. But once he appeared on the scene I was disappointed. He didn't do anything frightening, he just chased her around, grabbing her throughout the house.
**SPOILER AHEAD**
*****SPOILER*****
Okay, don't say I didn't warn you! You've been warned!!! =)
The ending was also a disappointment, the killer doesn't die, there is no great struggle/fight scene between the killer and Jill, and then the police come, he gets caught, and that's that. The end. You don't learn why the killer has stalked and killed other teen baby-sitters before Jill, you don't learn the motives of the killer either. You don't even get scenes from the killer's perspective, it's all told from Jill's POV.
If you are looking to be truly scared or disturbed then this is the wrong movie for you. It's a pretty tame movie, and although it will get your heart pounding for a bit, it's not a very good horror movie. If you're still curious, by all means go ahead and watch, but don't expect anything great.
 IT'S PRETTY SCARY... March 27, 2008
THIS MOVIE WAS SUSPEND, SCARY AND INTERESTING. I ENJOYED THE MOVIE. THIS MOVIE STORY WAS GOOD. SOME SCENE WAS BORED BUT IT'S OKAY. THIS MOVIE WAS
PRETTY SCARY. I FELT THAT.
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