When A Stranger Calls
Aug. 26th, 2017 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kybearfuzzI am a huge fan of the original 1979 film "When A Stranger Calls," starring Carol Kane and Charles Durning. The first 20 minutes of the movie are the best, the one where Jill the babysitter gets the phone calls asking if she's checked the children. From what I heard, those 20 minutes were the original film and then they added the rest to make it a full movie.
The 2006 remake of the movie took the original 20 minutes and stretched them out to length of a full movie. Camilla Belle plays Jill this round, a teenager who is having boyfriend trouble and went over her minutes dealing with him. As punishment, her parents deactivate her cell phone and get her a babysitting job on the night of the big bonfire to help pay for the bill. The formula pretty follows suit after that -- creepy phone calls from an unseen stalker asking if she's checked the children.
The reviews of the 2006 remake were dismal, but I really liked the movie, enough to have seen it in the theater twice and then have purchased the DVD when released. While it may be a bit slow, it does do what most modern horror movies do not, it develops the characters so you care about them. Jill is not just a stereotypical babysitter, she's a reasonably responsible young woman. Granted, she makes some mistakes, but she becomes quite the hero toward the movie's end, definitely finding a spot as "final girl," despite the fact that the number of murders in the movie is low.
I watched the movie again the other night. It ages well, except for the cell phones being dated. While it's low rated on Rotten Tomatoes (9%), the audience score is 43%, so it looks like I'm not totally alone in liking it.
The 2006 remake of the movie took the original 20 minutes and stretched them out to length of a full movie. Camilla Belle plays Jill this round, a teenager who is having boyfriend trouble and went over her minutes dealing with him. As punishment, her parents deactivate her cell phone and get her a babysitting job on the night of the big bonfire to help pay for the bill. The formula pretty follows suit after that -- creepy phone calls from an unseen stalker asking if she's checked the children.
The reviews of the 2006 remake were dismal, but I really liked the movie, enough to have seen it in the theater twice and then have purchased the DVD when released. While it may be a bit slow, it does do what most modern horror movies do not, it develops the characters so you care about them. Jill is not just a stereotypical babysitter, she's a reasonably responsible young woman. Granted, she makes some mistakes, but she becomes quite the hero toward the movie's end, definitely finding a spot as "final girl," despite the fact that the number of murders in the movie is low.
I watched the movie again the other night. It ages well, except for the cell phones being dated. While it's low rated on Rotten Tomatoes (9%), the audience score is 43%, so it looks like I'm not totally alone in liking it.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-28 08:21 pm (UTC)An interesting thing I'm seeing now is shows purposely using older phone and other similar technology. Gotham generally shows characters using flip phone type phones, using just a tidge of needed tech in it's purposely lack of a nondescript date world. Technology today is almost too advanced to make some of the problems the fictional worlds plausible. Gordon can't find the Penguin's hideout? Just ping "find my friends" on his cell LOL that would make for a boring 5 minutes LOL
no subject
Date: 2017-08-30 12:56 am (UTC)I've read that horror movies have to be creative now because everyone is so inter-connected with smartphones that it is hard to create an unsafe environment to build a story around.