WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (1979)

 

(Director/co-screenwriter: Fred Walton. Co-screenwriter/producer: Steve Feke.)

Review

STRANGER, a highly successful independent feature expanded from Fred Walton and Steve Feke’s 1977 twenty-two-minute college short THE SITTER, shares a lot of elements with Bob Clark’s 1974 proto-slasher BLACK CHRISTMAS (down to the exact phrasing of “the calls are coming from inside the house”) and John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978), the latter of which was a large impetus for STRANGER getting financed and made. That said, STRANGER is not a mere retread of BLACK and HALLOWEEN, it is a top-notch and relatively bloodless thriller that is just as excellent and distinctive as those other two films.

The story runs thusly: while Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) babysits the Mandrakis’ two young kids, a strange man calls her and asks her “Have you checked the children?” (She hasn’t in the last few minutes). More calls, in swift succession and with increasing ring-volume, follow.  (The increasing ring-volume was director Walton’s idea, to further jangle viewers’ nerves.)

Initially, Jill thinks it’s Bobby, a guy she hopes would call her (a reversal of Laurie Strode’s stated wishes in HALLOWEEN). Jill quickly realizes that the calls are not from Bobby and calls the cops, who at first dismiss the calls as a crank, then take her seriously. Through luck and smart thinking, Jill escapes physical harm though the Mandrakis’ children are killed by the apprehended Curt Duncan, a lunatic who murdered them with his bare hands (this is only shown in a flashback, with the unseen dead kids under blankets).

Seven years after these events, Jill is married with two kids. She’s still haunted by her last babysitting gig at the Mandrakis residence and acutely protective of her children. She’s unaware that Duncan (Tony Beckley) has escaped from the asylum he’s been interred for the past seven years. Detective John Clifford (Charles Durning), a retired cop who arrested Duncan, knows about Duncan’s offscreen violent escape as does Dr. Mandrakis, father of Duncan’s victims seven years prior. Mandrakis hires Clifford to track Duncan down and punish him. Clifford agrees.

When Duncan sees Carol’s picture in the newspaper (she’s a media personality), he begins stalking her children, leading to STRANGER‘s thrilling climax and somber denouement.

The look and feel of the tightly written and shot STRANGER are intense, with great use of chiaroscuro (at one point NOSFERATU-ish), its cinematography provided by Donald Peterson in his first film as a director of cinematography. The pacing is solid, feels Seventies in its color palette, and the talent involved in the making of this film is stellar.

Carol Kane (AVA'S POSSESSIONS, 2015) is great as the initially-carefree-then-wary Jill Johnson. Tony Beckley, who was terminally ill during the making of STRANGER (his last film) nails it as the jittery, mentally unstable, and pathetic Curt Duncan, a fully expressed character whose conflicting needs make for a memorable villain. Colleen Dewhurst (THE DEAD ZONE, 1983) also nails it as Tracy, briefly the focus of Duncan’s post-escape obsession.

Charles Durning (SISTERS, 1972) plays Detective John Clifford as an initially understated character who becomes more concerned and darker in his intentions as the film goes on─Durning, pro that he is, embodies this familiar-to-him character with aplomb. Ron O’Neal (SUPERFLY, 1972) is entertaining as the level-headed Lt. Charlie Garber, a fellow policeman.

Other notable actors, brief in their roles, include: Carmen Argenziano (GRADUATION DAY, 1981) as Dr. Mandrakis and Rutanya Alda (AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION, 1982) as Mrs. Mandrakis.

Kane and Durning reprised their roles in director Fred Walton’s television film WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK (1993), also titled SILENT RAGE.

STRANGER is one of my all-time favorite suspense thrillers, an intense-from-the-get-go flick that uses the oft-used urban legend of The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs, yet makes it unique in its look, characters, and delivery. The phrase “seminal work” has been applied to the mostly bloodless and only-briefly-violent STRANGER with good reason.