Don't listen to the negative reviews

Admirable film.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The title is a bit misleading on this TV movie, in that we expected a horror film. What we actually get is a reasonably decent high school bullying/stalking drama, with the long-haired Kathleen Beller as the victim. The plot also deals with a rape that goes unpunished, truly edgy material for a 1970s family TV flick. Beller plays a high school senior who starts getting nasty phone calls and notes from a stalker. The adults in her life do not handle the situation particularly well, and she begins to withdraw into herself. There is no end of suspects, to boot. Blythe Danner plays her high-strung mom and Dennis Quaid is one of her fellow students. Looks like it was filmed in a real high school, which helps. But it drags after awhile, and could have been about 20 minutes shorter. Truth is, a little bit of Beller goes a long way. She was a bit exotic looking with her massive mane and big round eyes , but she was not a very good actress.

It has all the trappings of a bad movie about high school students, their loves, intrigues, and murders, but it's a little better than that. Poor Kathleen Beller, a pretty student at Oldfield High, starts getting mysterious notes saying things like, "I'm watching you." If that weren't unnerving enough, the phone calls begin. It all finally ends in her being raped, rather decorously. I had the wrong villain picked out. I could have sworn it would turn out to be the encouraging but slightly out-of-focus photography teacher.It's not a slasher movie. There's no blood. Nobody threatens anybody else with an ax. It essentially a drawn-out story of Beller and the conundrums she faces regarding sex, family disputes, the threatening phone calls, her talent at photography, and whatnot.A lot depends on Beller. She's in almost every scene. And she's adequate -- no more than that. She has an effective pout. Neither she nor anyone else has any scenes in which they explode with emotion. She's attractive in a babyish way and has wavy burnt-carmine hair that's really LONG, like down to her sacroiliac, the kind of soft mane any normal man would want to run barefoot through. Her boy friend, Tony Bill, has even features, and that's it. Ditto for Beller's Dad, who should never be promoted out of hair spray for men commercials.The best performance is unquestionably from Blythe Danner. Her big blue eyes and ash blond hair aside, she's able to do something original with even small moments of distress or concern, and it makes much of the rest of the cast look as if they're auditioning for parts. Dennis Quaid has an important role but doesn't do much with it, partly because it's not written that way. He has only a few lines and is asked to do nothing but smirk or look puzzled. He was to improve mightily over the next few years.I don't know that the film deserves too much acting talent. The director, Walter Graumann, must have once read a book of formulas for directors. Let's see. There's the camera zooming in for a choker close up when someone is about to say something important or express an emotion deeper than indifference.Twice, Beller, the helpless victimized young girl, is quietly attending to something and an unexpected event takes place -- a door swings open without warning, or a figure appears out of the darkness -- and she leaps to her feet and gasps loudly. I guess someone forgot the musical sting that usually accompanies these shocks.The camera has a habit of taking the point of view of the miscreant -- the monster, the murderer, the rapist, the voyeur. I don't know why this meme has infected the industry. Yes, it serves to hide the identity of the heavy, but it also forces the audience into the position of identifying with the person who is about to do wrong. The device was much less offensive in "Rear Window." Final cliché: After the rape, Beller wakes up in the hospital, bruised and deflowered, surrounded by loving family, doctors, and police. They all ask her, "Who did this?" And, as is WAY too often the case, the victim breaks down and begins sobbing gibberish. "Nobody will believe me anyway," she finally gasps out. I'll skip the legal improbabilities that follow.I'm being kind of harsh on the movie not because it's so terrible but because with a little imagination and talent it could have been better than it is. Those family disputes, for instance, are an irrelevant distraction. Much is made of Dad's being laid off and hiding it from Beller to "protect her." Mom, with her part-time job showing houses, is holding everything together. But the movie has little sympathy for the parents. Instead, as Beller finally tells them, they should stop treating her like a baby.Nice photography in joyous color. The sky is always a blazing blue. There are few spooky night-time scenes. Everybody is middle-class or better. They drive some sporty machines, take fencing classes, and if things don't work out at Oldfield High, the parents send them back East to private boarding schools. How nice for them, he said, in an envious froth.

The best thing going for this rather routine TV movie melodrama is spirited performances by the young stars, including a very youthful Dennis Quaid in a part that would have gone to Bruce Dern 15 years before. The movie is almost two separate movies in one, the first part leading up to the assault on the teenage female lead babysitter is a quasi-horror film not unlike the original When A Stranger Calls, which was released later. There are various suspects who may be making the terrorizing phone calls and messages, and we are in the dark until the assault. The second part, anti-climactic in a way, involves the girl recovering to be stronger and to bring the perpetrator to justice. Unfortunately this section is weaker than the first part regardless of the good intentions by the film-makers to show the difficult process of justice. The adult leads are really unspectacular and mediocre at best, and Tony Bill displays good reasons as to why he left acting to be a producer/director. There is a subplot regarding his character losing a job that really goes nowhere and was unnecessary to the main plot. Blythe Danner as the mother is often more hysterical that the teenage daughter, and comes off as hammy. She's done better work. Scott Columby is fine but could have easily been replaced by one of the other "Scott" actors of the time, either Jacoby or Baio. Alan Fudge is good, and shows why his last name was a big mistake. Where was his agent when he first started? Imagine if he and Barbara Hershey had gotten married!

Okay, I love this movie!!!!! I watched it over and over again. It is so hard to tell who the attacker is. You keep thinking it's one person, then another, then back to the first person, then another person. It is so suspense full you want to fast forward your TV to the end to see who it is. SUMMARY: Gail Osborne is raped and left at her home. She is in the hospital and begins to tell the story of how she was raped. It goes from her meeting her steady boyfriend, to her teacher who takes a liking to her, to her ex-boyfriend, all different stories, all suspects. But who did it? I love the acting, they have a lot of great talent in here. The suspense is wonderful and the settings are superb. If it comes on TV watch it. *** 1/2 stars 10/10