When a Stranger Calls

When a Stranger Calls….Don’t Be Home
By Michael Flanagan

I’m writing this review because the other review on this page gives the film too much credit. And to save you a dime.

The only good thing about the original was the opening. The “have you checked the children” moment is the best one in that movie, and apparently someone agreed with me, because they decided to remake this and stretch out the first fifteen minutes of the original into an hour and a half. And not one minute works.

The lead actress, Camilla Belle, is about as convincing an actress as a child’s crayon work is convincing as still life. The movie isn’t scary, even for a moment. And the shameless plot added to this piece of dead weight are embarrassing, poorly stage, and badly acted. Don’t rent this. Don’t rent the original. Just find a better movie. Like Hostel.

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By Edwin Hopkins
Email Mr. Hopkins

Solid

Tommy Flannagan, the titular stranger whose vague image appears before our ilfated heroine and reminds me of Robert Patrick’s T-1000 from Terminator 2, manages to remain invisible for so long in this remake, that it gets downright annoying. It takes a little over an hour for the real action to start once the fateful phone call from the police comes through.

Camilla Belle plays tormentee Jill Johnson, your typical high school teenager with typical high school problems like boyfriends, false friends and going way over on her cell phone minutes, 800 to be exact. This costly infraction warrants a grounding penalty from her parents and a baby sitting gig at a doctor’s palatial home nestled in a remotely beautiful woodland spot away from nearly everything.

Things ride pretty smoothly until the phone calls start coming. Some from her friends, most from a heavy breather who doesn’t talk much at all, generally no more than five or six words. Enough to make Jill nervous about being alone in the house. When she calls the police about it, they assume that the caller is just a crank and tell her to relax. Nevertheless, as the number of calls from the stranger increases, so does Jill’s terror level.

One other minor irritation are her friend’s phoning her from a gala celebration she wanted to go to tonight, fireworks and all. She makes several call backs in a frantic effort to tell them what’s happening only to be cut off by an “out of range message.”

As usual, basically because of the extended cat-and-mouse game amid Jill and the stranger, director Simon West has little time for character development except for a love triangle involving Jill, her boyfriend, Bobby and “best” friend, Tiffany ,which amounts to no more than a kiss. I felt kind of let down since this was the same man who helmed actioners Con Air and Lara Croft:Tomb Raider. The suspense was rather gripping, but could have been intensified more.

Jake Wade Wall’s screenplay ( adapted from the 1979 original) brings things together quickly despite having really only one main character to work with. The opening scene when we first encounter the stranger is a notable, haunting precursor of things to come.

Tessa Thompson (Scarlet) and Brian Geraghty (Bobby) live up to the role title, supporting characters. They spend much of their time trying to communicate with Jill via cell phone and calming her down. Even best friend Tiffany springs a surprise in an attempt to patch things up between her and Jill.

Stranger’s conclusion is pretty dramatic. Of course I won’t spoil it, but I will say that it borders on expected and unexpected. Ms. Belle turns in the best performance of the entire film in this scene, bolstering my opinion that she has good potential as an actress.

I don’t know if Simon West or any other director is planning to remake the sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back, but I hope it will be a bit more terrifying than this retread and with more heart wrenching suspense.