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Directed by: Simon West Starring: Camilla Belle, Tommy Flanagan, Bobby Gereghty, Clark Gregg When a Stranger Calls is a remake of a 1979 horror film starring Carol Kane. The most important thing to keep in mind is that the Simon West remake takes only her segment of the film - the prologue, which runs around twenty minutes - and tries to stretch it out for 100 minutes. Just letting you know this is a remake of half a movie...and that's precisely what this feels like: half a movie. The movie starts with showing a killing of a girl that isn't actually shown, then a pudgy detective that we'll never see again fretting that 'there was no murder weapon' (gee, I guess hands are just used for masturbating and eating hot dogs, aren't they, Matlock?), followed by the introduction of our wooden, shallow protagonist Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle), doing things that end up having no bearing on the story and talking to people we'll never see again; the horrible part is that they establish these ancillary characters like major players with important weight on the story, when you only see them in a shot or two afterward. Basically, poor Jill ran over her minutes talking to her ex-boyfriend, so she has to pay for them by babysitting at the rich Mandrakis' isolated house. The half a star I gave for the movie goes to the house, whose interesting architecture gave me something to look at that didn't make me want to shoot myself. (Not that Camilla Belle isn't easy on the eyes...) What follows is a series of cliched jump scares...for more than an hour. the next 60 minutes consist of a weird noise, suspenseful music building, Jill lumbering slowly to her destination, the cat/maid/coat on hanger/friend startling her, next scene. Literally. One of her friends stops by for a short scene that attempts to move along the boyfriend subplot, but only succeeds in giving us a horrible scene that gives us every teenage-girl-escaping-via-car cliche, including dropping her keys under the car, the car not starting, a tree in the way, etc. If anything breaks up the fake-scare formula, it's the incessant calling. I know that it's the motif of the film, but one tired schtick does not a movie make; the calls are stupid and go nowhere. Only a couple of times does the killer actually speak; the rest of the time he just pants into the phone while Jill whines into the receiver. After the hour of red herrings, the killer actually starts becoming a threat, until finally, twenty minutes from film's end, the killer (Tommy Flanagan) appears and proceeds to knock into stuff, walk menacingly but slowly, and overall fail to kill two infants and a teeny-bopper. Maybe the detective's amazement at no murder weapon stemmed from the fact that the guy actually pulled it off. Needless to say, Jill dispatches the killer just in time for the police to show, and the dramatic reveal of the killer's face - IT WAS....no one anyone really knows. A totally new character that no one cares about. Then again, who really suspected it was any of the characters introduced in the film? The first killing took place 125 miles away. Overall, completely boring and inconsequential. .5/5 RATING: .5 PROS: Slick house CONS: Absolutely nothing happens in the movie ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/rg/HPBO_1/TOP_LHS//title/tt0455857/
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Feb 12, 2006 18:39
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 13:23 |
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I will add though if your going to see this movie, see it with a friend. This movie was so bad, that the laughs I got from it made it worth the money. Nothing, I mean nothing in this movie was scary. It was all pure funny stupid poo poo. 1/5 pnihill2000 fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Feb 13, 2006 |
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Feb 13, 2006 00:13
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Yeah, this movie takes every scary movie cliche, and does it like poo poo. When the friend went to her car to leave, they tried to fake a sense of urgency that apparently a rustling in the bushes caused, before she even got into the car, I made the 'car struggling to start' sound and motion, and when it acually happened, everyone around me laughed. My friends and I realised how crappy it was near the beginning, and started laughing at things while other people were still haining on to it possibly being serious, but halfway through, everyone gave up and it became somewhat of a laughfest. This was the absolutley shittiest movie I have ever seen , as far as failing to deliver its supposed goal. .5/5 for attractive girl (nice body) and a pretty cool house.
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Feb 15, 2006 21:00
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I thought this movie was watchable only because the house was pretty cool. There was one scene that made me half jump, and that was just the old "loud noise followed by quick cut to silly cat" the first time, the other 20 times didn't even make me blink. My friend and I "watched" this movie in an empty theater for free at 11 at night. Well, there was one other guy there, but he left during the very important bond fire party scene with dialouge of, "I can't hear you there's no signal here"....the 2nd time around. I did like some of the lighting in the movie, especially that cool blue color that they had in the huge window of the living room. The Jill Johnson character was pretty cute, but looked like she was 7 years old. She's really the only character in the entire movie. There is a maid, some parents, some mandrakis, a killer, 2 friends and a boyfriend. They each get about 3 minutes of camera time the whole movie a piece. The rest is of Jill sitting on a couch or whining into the phone looking at her stopwatch. The other sub stories are about an ex-boyfriend kissing a best-friend, a cell phone bill, and some housekeeper that may or may not leave during the night. SPOILERS The housekeeper gets killed pretty quick into the movie and dumped into a pond. The slutty friend gets killed, brought up to the third story of the house, and the shower is turned on for some reason. How does Jill not notice a killer carrying her dead friend up 2 flights of stairs in a dead quiet house while she sits on a couch in dead silence with the stairs behind her is beyond me. The whole movie was beyond me. The biggest "what the gently caress" moment I had was when Jill goes to check on the kids, and they are for some reason in a chest by the foot of the bed, with there hands over their mouths, and the killer is standing on the rafters of a different room, and jumps down. What the hell just happened? END SPOILERS This movie was a bunch of random scenes that could not be put together in a coherent way by anyone. STUPID loving MOVIE 0/5 Pro: House. Con: Everything else. The Virgin Surgeon fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Feb 17, 2006 |
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Feb 17, 2006 01:06
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I'm not sure why i rented this movie, but I did, so here goes: As previously stated, its pretty much a girl walking around a house for 70 minutes of it, investigating every creak and shadow that gets thrown at her...only to find out its the cat/her imagination/some other stupid thing which is not going to harm her. Something really pissed me off about this movie, and it was the extremely ambient lighting in the house through the whole movie. I mean, there had to have been a manual override to light that place up like the sun, but she decides to walk around the house, scared out of her mind, with all kinds of shadows and reflections everywhere she turns. But i guess it wouldn't have been the same movie without all the unneccessary "seat-squirming". Also, after viewing this movie, i hate phones more than ever, after hearing either somebody calling her, or her calling somebody , for 90 minutes. Here's a short breakdown of the film *Ring* "Hello?" ( Something creaks) *Ring* "Hello?" ( Something creaks) *Running wild through every room of the house, panting for breath* There. Saved you some money But i am going to give it a 1/5, because the girl was cute. But i was sick of her voice by the end. And oh yeah,what was with that ending in the hospital, with the dream sequence....was that supposed to be a last minute shocker for you, to know this won't have a happy ending, or was it actually....and oh god i dread this.... a setup for a sequel? Please god don't let that happen. 1/5 Pro: Cute girl, cool house Con: House lighting was apparently set to "spooky" setting. Marsupial Salad fucked around with this message at 03:24 on May 26, 2006 |
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May 26, 2006 02:30
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 13:23 |
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Wife rented this movies and I hated the fact that 2.50 was wasted as I would rather watch my cat sleep than the movie. Predictions - NO Suspenseful - NO Exciting - NO Scary - NO Acting - NO Cute Girl - Well Yeah Cool House - Yes Anything Else - poo poo NO Sorry to whoever truly financed the advertising and other film costs as I hate to see people and companies waste their money.
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Jun 3, 2006 04:31
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