The opening third of the original WHEN A STRANGER CALLS is one of the tensest sequences in horror film history. However, due to a completely random middle act, the film squanders all of its potential. So when I heard they were remaking it, I finally thought now here is a chance to make a great horror flick. Again for some reason Hollywood isn't listening to me.
The remake takes the opening third of the original and stretches it out to 87 minutes. Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle, THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE) has run up her cell phone bill and her parents have taken away her phone and car as punishment. Additionally, she has to babysit to pay back her mom and dad. So her father drives her out to a huge, gorgeous house in the middle of nowhere to sit for Dr. and Mrs. Mandrakis (Derek de Lint, DEEP IMPACT, & Kate Jennings Grant, UNITED 93). Soon after arriving she begins to get creepy phone calls.
At first, one thinks the cheats the writer came up with to allow this story to take place in a modern setting are pretty clever, however, after cheat, after cheat, after cheat, which all get lamer and less logical, we get tired and restless. One major problem is the presence of live-in maid Rosa (Rosine Hatem, BEAUTIFUL). Why do you need a babysitter if you have a live-in maid? The Mandrakis say Rosa might leave to visit her sick sister, but it never rings more than a plot devise to inject the story with several false scare moments.
This moves to the next major problem — too many false scares. After awhile, the film loses all of its ability to create any tension, because each time Jill goes investigating a noise it leads to nothing. Then we have Jill's friends, which are completely needless. Jill's drama with her boyfriend Bobby (Brain Geraghty, JARHEAD) and best friend Tiffany (Katie Cassidy, CLICK) goes nowhere and only provides a reason for her to answer the phone constantly. A broken voicemail would have been a better fix than the caricature that is Tiffany. So are they needed for a greater body count? Nope. This PG-13 flick is not out for racking up the bodies or pouring on the gore.
This could have been a good quality, especially with the recent trend in horror for each film to be more vile than the next, however director Simon West (TOMB RAIDER) and writer Jake Wade Wall (2007's THE HITCHER) never make the threat real. I liked that the screenplay knows that sometimes the scariest thing when home alone is an overactive imagination, but in this film that only provides scares for so long.
In the end, it seems that the first third of the original can't sustain a full feature. The film seems to be buying time until the Stranger (Tommy Flanagan, SIN CITY) shows up in the last third, which kicks the film into a frantic chase. Ultimately, saving the original twist until the end is too difficult to pull off. The on-the-nose dialogue, contrivances and clichés wear down the audience to the point where they don't care if a killer is coming. More than anything the film is disappointing, because it blows the chance to take the opening of the flawed original and turn it into some like HALLOWEEN where on one night tension rules as a sick killer stalks an unaware babysitter.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
