Pretty Good

How sad is this?

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

There are some movies that, when you move past a certain age, you really struggle getting into the drama/suspense of the plot and characters. "When A Stranger Calls" is exactly that kind of movie.For a basic plot summary, this film sees babysitter Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle) terrorized by a mysterious caller who won't seem to leave her alone. As the calls keep coming in, Jill gets progressively creeped out and decides to take action.Like I said in the opening, the trouble with this movie is that once you are over about 15-16 years of age, the suspense themes of the film will no longer truly creep you out. Simply put, this is a "tween" flick through and through, as there really isn't enough "real" suspense to suck in those who have seen these types of efforts before.The other dramatic problem with "Stranger" is how they deal with Jill's antagonist. Instead of leaving anything to mystery, pretty much the whole scenario of what will happen is laid out in the film's opening scene. A bit more mystery might have been the way to suck in those viewers who aren't necessarily enraptured by the "babysitter in peril" angle.Overall, then, "When A Stranger Calls" is a below-average effort in the suspense genre, doing just enough to avoid a dismal rating. If you want any enjoyment from it at all, watch it with a young or pre-teen. Otherwise, this one can easily be skipped.

Based on the 1979 film, "When a Stranger Calls" stars Camilla Belle as an innocent teen who becomes the next target of an unknown serial killer. Jill Johnson is a talented track runner. She feels bummed after catching her boyfriend kissing one of her best friends played by Katie Cassidy (in a very pointless role). After going over her minutes, she's forced to take a babysitting job for a wealthy couple. After being dropped off by her dad, she meets the suave, charming couple and is soon left alone to tend to the kids. Jill eventually explores the luxurious home and as the evening progresses, she starts to receive frightening calls from a threatening stranger. The phone calls continue and Jill becomes consumed with fear. When the killer makes his way inside the house, he causes her to fear for her life.For starters, the plot is mediocre. And the acting and directing are the same. Most of the scenes seem very fast paced and as a result, we're not given the chance to really get to know the characters. In addition to the weak dialogue, there's just not much to see in this bland, little flick. This so called thriller doesn't produce much thrill at all, especially in the climatic part of the film.Overall, this film could've been avoided as a remake. It's a highly forgettable, low grade thriller with not much to see or look forward to. Watch only if you have nothing better to do.

Man, and I was on a roll with good movies too! I mean sure I might've hit a speed bump with "Magic Mike XXL" but at least that had hot guys in it. This movie is all based on one scare, "A stranger keeps stalking this girl", this scare is then repeated for 75 minutes. It starts off slightly suspenseful, but after the fourth time of Jill thinking she hears something only for it to be a cheap jump-scare or nothing at all, the thrill dies pretty damn quick. And when I say "cheap jump-scare" I mean it. There's decent build up to the first few, but the payoff is something dumb like a cat, or a sprinkler system. And then after the film's climax, there's a balloon pop jump-scare for no reason (maybe in case you fell asleep which is pretty easy to do). I mean the concept of the movie is nothing new, if anything it's too toned down because of the PG-13 rating. I know the difference between genuine horror and just blood and nudity, but I feel like the lack of blood hurt this movie more than anything. The killer only gets two real characters, who served no real purpose to the plot anyway, but it looks like he just broke their necks. Compared to the previous victims that apparently got slaughtered off-screen, if you're gonna kill off nobodies in order to have a body count, at least make their deaths memorable.And I don't need boobs in a movie to hold my attention, but they would've made it at least a little bit more enjoyable than just a copy/paste scare structure. Oh wow, the stranger calls the house and hangs up. Oh wow, Jill thinks she hears something and goes to investigate. Oh wow, it was nothing. Repeat for the remainder of the movie. At least Jill acts like a real human would act in this situation when it starts, but by the end I barely cared. Also, I thought for sure the kids would get killed off. I know that makes me sound horrible, but I like when horror movies actually break certain taboos like killing kids and animals. I'm not saying they have to be tortured to death, but it makes the audience hate the killer more. Oh yeah, the killer in this is like a cardboard cut out. We don't know who he is, what his motives are, or why he chooses the people he does. I suppose the filmmakers did this to make him more mysterious and scary, like a Michael Myers character, but again the boring movie killed off the suspense. I would say "At least it's only 90 minutes", but "The Hitcher" from 2007 was shorter and at least I liked half of that movie. In fact I'd rather watch the first half of "The Hitcher" remake than watch this boring movie ever again.

Agreeing to take a baby-sitting job, a teen alone in a dark, isolated house gradually learns the harassing phone-calls towards her are coming from inside the house and must get away from the stranger before it's too late.Overall this one was pretty bland but certainly had some good points here. One of the film's few good points here is the gradual building tension with the phone calls, as this one gets these going along really well. From the pranks by her friends and the initially harmless joke-calls to the growing realization that there's something more to the calls, the incessant ringing and shallow perverted breathing merely add to this and their frantic nature becomes all the more apparent and well-deserved so that the tracing attempts that come up delivers really well here. As these are really serviceable scenes, these here all set the stage for what is undoubtedly the best and most worthwhile part of this, the actual stalking and brawling in the house. From the first confrontation, where he comes through an open-air part of the ceiling towards her, escaping to an underwater pond inside the aquarium to the struggle on-and-off the open staircase, with her trying to run away and he repeatedly grabs her legs and pulls her toward him each time she tries to escape, it's all good with plenty of action and smarts as she tries to escape the confrontation inside and tries to find the missing kids. It's a really decent showing and deserves some special mention. Still, beyond these points there are some really troubling parts to this that really hold this down. The biggest point here is in how the main half to this one is just endlessly repeating itself, continually blaring the phone calls on end that's quite aggravating since this results in endless scenes of her fidgeting around the house while the clumsily-conceived investigations into the possible party she thinks is behind the joke until the next phone-call appears to continue the aggravation. That this goes on for as long as it does before getting to the main attacks is the real reason why this sinks down by making it drag out replaying it over-and-over again. As well, another big factor here in the inherent tame-ness of the entire thing, as the rating here means that the entire effort is tease without delivering, effectively rendering most of what happens here moot as it won't go as far as it really should here with this kind of plot line and action, and that includes what happens to the kills here with such a small amount of kills done off-screen and never show how they truly died as the tell- tale wounds are completely missing when they're stumbled upon later. The last flaw here is the rather over-the-top and utterly unrealistic house that never looks livable and instead feels purposefully designed to showcase the chasing at the end instead of doing anything worthwhile. These here really hold this one back.Rated PG-13: Language and Mild Violence.