THE BLACK SHEEP is an ongoing column featuring different takes on films that either the writer HATED, but that the majority of film fans LOVED, or that the writer LOVED, but that most others LOATH. We’re hoping this column will promote constructive and geek fueled discussion. Dig in!
WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK (1993)
DIRECTED BY FRED WALTON
Few films have ever left a scarifying mark on my childhood psyche in the way WHEN A STRANGER CALLS did. I swear, that opening 17-minute sequence in which Jill (Carol Kane), an unassuming babysitter is harassed by a series of prank phone calls asking to check on the children sleeping upstairs, only to learn through a police trace that the calls are coming from inside the house…was so spine-tingling and hair-raisingly frightening was that to my nine-year-old eyes that I owe a huge debt to the film for fostering my early love of horror films. You can imagine then when I found a tattered old one-sheet for the film in the movie-poster collection my late great cousin left me. Prized possession!
Not to bury the lead, but to start with that anecdote to is to essentially say I had no interest in seeing the Showtime original, made-for-TV sequel, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK when I first heard about it. Why would I? How could it possibly stack up to the original? But then, one day my friend Jacob handed me recorded VHS copy of the film with the assurance that it was a worthy endeavor. I finally popped that sucker in and, suffice it to say, was so thoroughly bowled over by the masterful opening 26-minute sequence, that I’d spend the next several years making every one of my damn friends watch said opening sequence alone, skipping the remaining 65 minutes entirely. The opening is that terrifying. Still, the fact that the sequel was conceived as TV-movie tells you that it’s been subjected to the F*cking Black Sheep treatment from the get-go. And while we’re super stoked to see Shout! Factory give WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK a proper Blu-ray release on May 28th, this film is far better than anyone has given it credit for. I’d honestly argue this is one of the biggest F*cking Black Sheeps we’ve ever stuck up for!
The opening sequence is so pitch-perfectly-paced in order to achieve maximum tension and suspense. Part of the reason for this is because WHEN A STRANGER CALLS was written and directed by Fred Walton, who co-wrote and directed the original. As with James DeMonaco with the PURGE pictures, getting a chance to refine the material inherently makes for improvement, which is why THE PURGE ELECTION YEAR (the last entry DeMonaco directed) is the best of the bunch. Well, Walton knew exactly what worked well in the original and what didn’t, and refashioned the opening accordingly. Here’s the gist. Teenage Julia (Jill Schoelen) gets dropped off on a dark suburban street by her parents. She’s set to babysit two sleeping little tykes while their parents are due back by 11:30. The house is large and Walton’s use of silence is absolutely inspired here in the way it creates a disquieting tension. As Julia settles in, watches MTV and does a little homework, a sudden knock comes at the door. A man claiming that his car broke down nearby asks to use the phone to call the Auto Club. Wisely, Julia denies a stranger entry into the house, but agrees to call the club on his behalf. But the phone is dead. Julia tells the man she called and it’ll be an hour-long wait.
Julia puts on a teapot, but turns it off at the sound of door knocking. The man claims a tow-truck never came and that Julia should call them again. Julia again agrees and feigns a call. She checks on the children. They’re sound asleep. Julia hears another sound, goes downstairs and finds a screaming teapot. Someone’s in the house. The man then tells Julia she’s not alone, as he’s seen someone upstairs through the window. Julia checks and the kids are gone. Julia rushes back downstairs and unlocks the door to escape, only to see an overcoat laying on the ground. But the man’s voice tells her to look into the living room. Julia does and is accosted by a caped intruder. Again, the direction of this scene is absolutely perfect, and elicits the exact response from the viewer that was intended. Teeth-clattering terror! It’s simply one of my favorite opening scenes to any movie ever made, horror or not.
Cue Jill (Carol Kane) and Detective John Clifford (Charles Durning) from the first flick. Julia is now in college with a nasty femme-mullet, again being harassed in her apartment. A book moves from the shelf, a baby’s shirt appears in her closet, etc. Jill and John help Julia figure out what’s going on. They think it may be related to the incident five years prior, which Julia claims involved two assailants, not one. Clifford investigates and concludes that it was only one person who must be able to manipulate his voice. He figures the assailant to be a ventriloquist. Before Clifford hits a seedy strip-club to watch Landis (Gene Lythgow) perform a creepy-ass ventriloquist set, Jill apparently can’t take the torment any longer and shoots herself in the head with a gun Jill urged her to buy for protection. Creepy-ass Landis visits comatose Jill in the hospital and begins taking photos of her bruised face and nude body. Clifford finds these polaroids at Landis’ apartment, along with strange photos of Jill’s furnace.
Bookending the splendid opening is the also exquisitely constructed finale of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK. Clifford goes to warn Jill about Landis’ photos of her apartment, but like Julia’s, her phone is dead. Her door is locked from the outside. Suddenly Jill starts hearing Landis’ creepy-ass voice thrown all across the room. She can’t tell where it’s coming from. The voice grows louder and closer. Jill scrambles for her revolver, but has no clue where to aim it. Then we see a shot of the furnace we saw from Landis’ photos. Holy f*ck. It can’t be. In what is an absolutely bone-chilling and blood-curdling reveal, we see Landis completely disguised as the brick-wall and adjoining furnace, with only the whites of his eyeballs standing out. It’s f*cking mortifying. Landis lunges out at Jill, only to be met by the day-saving Clifford, but not before Landis is able to plug a round in Jill’s naval. I’ll leave it up to the few yet to see the flick to see if Jill, and Julia for that matter, survives in the end.
The real point is, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK is not only far superior to the insipid 2006 remake of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, it also features two brilliantly directed and genuinely unnerving bookend sequences that alone make the movie worthy of revisiting. The midsection, while a bit slow, gives us a gripping-enough police procedural to keep our interest piqued in the interim. Straight up, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK is one of the scariest and most effective made-for-television horror joints we’ve ever seen. It just might be the biggest F*cking Black Sheep of all TV horror flicks!