"Funner" With Frank

It’s a hoary old urban legend. You know, the one where a frightened young woman is alone in a house where she is receiving threatening phone calls from a mysterious stranger. And it turns out that the phone calls are coming from inside the house!

I don’t know the origin of this urban legend but it’s simply too good to be true. Nonetheless, in the right hands, the conceit of this material could be developed into an effective little horror film.

That’s exactly what happened with 1979’s WHEN A STRANGER CALLS. And while the title might have the most brand name recognition, what with sequels and remakes, STRANGER wasn’t the first film in this sub-genre.

I believe the first “caller in the house” film is actually BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974). Directed by Bob Clarke, BLACK has girls staying in a sorority house over the Christmas break not knowing that a psychopathic killer is hiding in the attic. It’s an effective little chiller, expertly directed by Bob Clarke who’s varied career includes such films as the Sherlock Holmes thriller MURDER BY DECREE (1979), raunch-a-rama PORKY’S (1981) and he perennial holiday classic A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983).

STRANGER is divided into three, neat acts. In the first, babysitter Carol Kane is tormented by a caller who keeps imploring her to “check on the children”. Turns out the children are dead and the killer is coming after Kane before being rescued by police detective Charles Durning.

Flash forward seven years. Durning is now a private detective hired by the father of the murdered children to catch the killer who has escaped from an insane asylum. Durning goes deep into the underbelly of Los Angelese while the killer forms a weird attraction to single woman Colleen Dewhurst.

Finally, in act three, Kane returns to the narrative. She’s married, with two children and a job ladder climbing husband. Wouldn’t you know it? She gets a phone call from the escaped killer which causes her to freak out. The police clear the house, and everything appears to have returned to normal before one of the most ludicrous “jump scare” scenes in cinema history. You’ll know it when you see it. I actually laughed out loud at this WTF scene and chances are you will do so too.

STRANGER is not a bad film by any stretch. It’s competently acted and directed and presents everything in a straightforward manner. One weird note: there is a musical cue that occurs at least three times that sounds exactly like the music that used to accompany the THX sound logo at certain movie theaters in the 1980s. It starts low and goes high and seems to encircle you. If you ever saw a movie in THX sound, you’ll know it when you hear it.

STRANGER is definitely worth watching but I urge you to also check out the superior, similar film BLACK CHRISTMAS.