When a Stranger Calls
February. 03,2006 PG-13Far away from the site of a gruesome murder, a teenager named Jill Johnson arrives at a luxurious home for a baby-sitting job. With the children fast asleep, she settles in for what she expects to be an ordinary evening. Soon, the ringing of a phone and the frightening words of a sadistic caller turn Jill's routine experience into a night of terror.
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Reviews
Admirable film.
Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
I stumbled across this movie as new arrival on Netflix, I've never been a fan of these teen babysitting 'horror' movies, I find them rather dull and boring. Now I'm not sure if because I was so tired when watching that I found it to be enjoyable, or if I genuinely think it was good. The house it is set in is beautiful and I was mad at myself for being sucked into the jump scares. The main character to me wasn't very likable though and I was rooting for her death which unfortunately never came, and I would like to have seen more of the killer and there to have been more than a motive rather than he was just a psycho killer. The ending was garbage and again was upset the the main character didn't die. I started this review liking this movie but the more I go on the more upset I am that she didn't die, oh and the fact you don't get to see anyone else die, their bodies are just discovered. The more I think about it the more I don't think I liked this movie at all. There is a lot of heavy breathing and nothingness happening for a lot of the time, and the people you want to die just don't. Worth a watch though, even if its just to get annoyed about the survivors.
Agreeing to take a baby-sitting job, a teen alone in a dark, isolated house gradually learns the harassing phone-calls towards her are coming from inside the house and must get away from the stranger before it's too late.Overall this one was pretty bland but certainly had some good points here. One of the film's few good points here is the gradual building tension with the phone calls, as this one gets these going along really well. From the pranks by her friends and the initially harmless joke-calls to the growing realization that there's something more to the calls, the incessant ringing and shallow perverted breathing merely add to this and their frantic nature becomes all the more apparent and well-deserved so that the tracing attempts that come up delivers really well here. As these are really serviceable scenes, these here all set the stage for what is undoubtedly the best and most worthwhile part of this, the actual stalking and brawling in the house. From the first confrontation, where he comes through an open-air part of the ceiling towards her, escaping to an underwater pond inside the aquarium to the struggle on-and-off the open staircase, with her trying to run away and he repeatedly grabs her legs and pulls her toward him each time she tries to escape, it's all good with plenty of action and smarts as she tries to escape the confrontation inside and tries to find the missing kids. It's a really decent showing and deserves some special mention. Still, beyond these points there are some really troubling parts to this that really hold this down. The biggest point here is in how the main half to this one is just endlessly repeating itself, continually blaring the phone calls on end that's quite aggravating since this results in endless scenes of her fidgeting around the house while the clumsily-conceived investigations into the possible party she thinks is behind the joke until the next phone-call appears to continue the aggravation. That this goes on for as long as it does before getting to the main attacks is the real reason why this sinks down by making it drag out replaying it over-and-over again. As well, another big factor here in the inherent tame-ness of the entire thing, as the rating here means that the entire effort is tease without delivering, effectively rendering most of what happens here moot as it won't go as far as it really should here with this kind of plot line and action, and that includes what happens to the kills here with such a small amount of kills done off-screen and never show how they truly died as the tell- tale wounds are completely missing when they're stumbled upon later. The last flaw here is the rather over-the-top and utterly unrealistic house that never looks livable and instead feels purposefully designed to showcase the chasing at the end instead of doing anything worthwhile. These here really hold this one back.Rated PG-13: Language and Mild Violence.
When coming out in theaters, When a Stranger Calls was a remake I was really anticipating, especially being a fan of the original at the time. Even though I enjoyed this film more back then, I couldn't help but feel disappointed after a second viewing. The writers were really trying hard to make this installment just as suspenseful as the first, but the monotonous scenes of safety alarms going off and pointless phone calls that aren't the killer dragged this movie horribly. Also, the killer really does not even say much of anything on the phone, so what's scary about phone calls if you don't hear vulgar language, threats or even a creepy voice. The viewers see no deaths and the film starts off with a very lousy plot. One thing I do admit, the casting of Camille Belle was a smash. She had solid character development and looked like a girl who you want to play this role. Overall, I still found myself consistently bored right up until the last couple of minutes of the movie.
It's Fernhill, Colorado and the teens are having a big bonfire party. Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle) is forced to babysit for the Mandrakis after exceeding her phone minutes. The Mandrakis live in a big house. There are two sleeping kids (Madeline Carroll, Arthur Young), and housekeeper Rosa at the house. Jill starts getting weird phone calls. She's angry at her boyfriend Bobby (Brian Geraghty) and friend Tiffany (Katie Cassidy) for kissing. Tiffany crashes her babysitting gig and then disappears. The calls keep coming and Jill calls the police.Camilla Belle is really pretty but rather bland as an actress. It doesn't help that the movie relies so heavily on her being alone. Quite frankly, nothing happens for most of the movie. They don't even introduce the kids until late in the movie. It doesn't take advantage of the girl alone scenario with better atmosphere. It never gets to a scary place. It's a lot of phone calls and missed connections. The whole movie feels like a missed connection. The final section is filled with action but it's too late.