When Jill Johnson accepted the opportunity to babysit a neighbor’s children she thought she would be in for an uneventful evening. While the children slept upstairs Jill begins to work on homework. When she receives a phone call from a strange man asking her if she checked on the children, she dismisses it as a prank. After repeated disturbing phone calls, Jill finally calls the police. As the evening carries on the tension raises and she discovers the calls are coming from inside the house!
But the terror does not end here.
Seven years after that fateful evening the man convicted of the heinous crime of murdering the young children escapes from an institution only to terrorize Jill once more.
Released in 1979, When A Stranger Calls stars Carol Kane as Jill Johnson and Charles Durning as the detective determined to stop the deranged psychopath in this taught thriller. The first several minutes truly make this movie with the scenes of the terrified babysitter downstairs while upstairs the unknown is taking place. When I first saw this I was at the babysitting age and this movie scared the crap out of me. Needless to say, I checked on the children repeatedly each evening and tried not to answer the phone!
In 2006 a remake of this movie was done and though it did start off promising with some of the changes, the movie fell apart and couldn’t live up to the original. Though the movie may be classified as “dated” by some, to this viewer the beginning of the original 1979 film is still terrifying to date.
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