By Jake Dee
Director: Simon West
Starring: Camilla Belle, Tommy Flanagan
Released: 2006
When a Stranger Calls is just another pearl in the endless string of sub-par horror remakes that Hollywood shucks by the boat load. Only this time, instead of remaking the entire storyline, they took about a 15 minute snippet from the original and tried to stretch it out over the course of an 87 minute feature. And it shows! It’s as if the director is desperately trying to masquerade how little material he has to work with; there’s virtually zero happening for about 70 of those minutes. Mislabeled as a horror film, this is technically a suspense thriller, but the only thing I wanted to suspend after watching it was a noose…from a rafter…with my head attached. Seriously, what I just wrote is scarier than anything in the flick, believe me!
We’re early introduced to our female lead Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle), a perfect looking high school freshman who enjoys running, and apparently running up her cell phone bill. As punishment for exceeding her limit plan by 800 minutes, her Jill’s father consigns her to babysitting duty as a means of payback, both financial and emotional. This forces the pouty Jill to miss hanging out with her boyfriend Bobby (Brian Geraghty) at a lakeside bonfire. Immediately, Jill takes on a new client, the grossly affluent Dr. Mandrakis (Derek de Lint) and his wife. They are off vacationing for the weekend, leaving their ten year old boy and girl in the care of Jill. They live in a daunting mansion, isolated on the shores of distant lake. The mansion is comprised mainly of glass; it’s like a giant see thru box!
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Jill arrives at the Mandrakis mansion, of course on a dark and stormy night. Right away, we notice how hi-tech the house is; a top notch automated alarm system, motion sensor lighting surrounding the perimeter etc. Jill should be safe alone with the children in such a place right? Please! Anytime you see 8 close ups of an alarm system in the first twenty minutes of a movie, you can bet the place is about as secure as a Veteran’s benefit plan. As soon as the Mandrakis’ leave, Jill is soon tormented by a host of eerie phone calls, where most of the time heavy breathing is the only thing heard on the other end of the line. Occasionally, the caller spouts the question “have you checked the children lately?” whereupon Jill races up stairs to the children’s bedroom only to find them snug asleep in their beds.
Jill becomes increasingly frightened, tries to fight it off by snooping around the mansion, putting on the Mrs.’ jewelry and what not. This doesn’t put her mind at ease however, and she is hit with another prank call, this time ending with a kid laughing and saying it’s funny. Then Jill speaks with Bobby, who at the bonfire, admits it was his friend who prank called once or twice. This gives Jill a tinge of solace until she receives another call in short order, this time from her friend Tiffany (Kate Cassidy) who surprisingly pops into the living room as a joke (funny, right?). This part, like the rest of the film, is about as suspenseful as your local news broadcast! Anyway, Tiffany goes on and on about this bonfire, trying to get Jill to shoot some booze and ditch the kids for the party. Apparently Tiff has too much make up on to realize it’s f***ing pouring outside!
The more frightened Jill becomes, the more articles of clothing she begins to peel off. This is inexplicable to me; but it’s almost like a game of strip-spook-her the way she starts off entirely concealed and by the end is scantily attired in a little tank top and low cut jeans (not that I’m seriously complaining). Camilla Belle’s body is unabashedly on display here, compromised in a range of lascivious under tones and subtexts. You’ve got the sleazy shot composition over-focusing on her body, the embarrassing phallic popsicle sequence, they way she’s physically stripped down at the end by the perpetrator etc etc. This movie is exploitation at its finest, subverted by way of a considerably “safe” PG-13 release. Seriously, this is the kind of picture ADD riddled, pre-pubescent teen age boys used to go see before they had the internet.
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British director Simon West has offered the world such cinematic gems as Con Air and Laura Croft: Tomb Raider. So, we’ve seen him helm a giant summer blockbuster with Nic Cage sporting a laughable accent (and even worse hair cut), four years later doing a video game adaptation with Oscar winner Angelina Jolie. Given this track record, it makes perfect sense that his natural progression would lead him to direct a PG-13 horror remake, doesn’t it? Actually I want to applaud West for tricking the world into believing When a Stranger Calls is a horror/suspense thriller, when really it’s quite a throwback exploitation film. Look closely, this movie is more a study of female objectification in the guise of glossy, big budget genre film.
I take personal umbrage with this particular remake, for Fred Walton’s 1979 original was one of the very few films growing up that truly frightened me. The first fifteen minutes of that film is masterful, its suspense legitimately rivaling Hitchcock (which you can tell is an influence, especially in the score). After those first 15-20 minutes, the movie slows down and shifts into a police procedural with Charles Durning’s storyline, and then becomes a thrilling whodunit with a pretty creepy climax. This remake bares no resemblance; they simply took the urban legend hook and turned it into one flat note. A note that’s far, far out of tune!
Favorite Part: Jill, leaving the kids, running out of the house into a storm, wearing a skimpy little t-shirt, all the while knowing that an assailant has just been watching her thru the windows. Apparently, Jill’s no honor student!
The Overall Dee-Cision: Don’t Watch It!
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