When A Stranger Calls Review Country : USA Year: 2006 Genre: Stalker / Horror Format: Cinema Running Time: 87 mins Distributor: Screen Gems "Have you checked the children?" Jill Johnson had better do so, or an unspeakable fate will befall her and her innocent young charges.... Credits Directed by Simon West. Written by Jake Wade Wall. Based upon a 1979 screenplay by Steve Feke and Fred Walton. Starring Camilla Belle, Tommy Flanagan, Tessa Thompson, Derek de Lint, Kate Jennings Grant and Brian Geraghty. With the double-damning luminary mantles of "remake" plus "PG-13 Horror", this Simon West-directed redux of the successful 1979 thriller When A Stranger Calls has at least two irons in the fire stoked to torch it to shreds. Add in a lethargic set-up, and you've almost got a do-it-yourself hatchet job review in the making. The problem is, When A Stranger Calls gets pretty damned good in the second act. Fans of Fred Walton's 1979 opus, about a child-murderer who terrorizes babysitters, may wonder how this got a PG-13. Lack of onscreen carnage as well as story changes can be credited. Indeed, instead of the time-lapse character study of the original film, this remake takes its predecessor's almost unbearably creepy opening fifteen minutes and expands it into an entire movie, with some new bells and whistles to boot. The results are somewhat hit and miss, with greater emphasis on the hit side. The name Jill Johnson is retained, although Carol Kane's original character is now played by Camilla Belle, who has been ordered by her well-meaning dad (Clark Gregg) to earn money via babysitting in order to compensate for her exorbitant cell phone bill. The setting is the Mandrakis home, an affluent lakeside mansion on a steep Colorado mountain road. The friendly hosts (Derek de Lint, Kate Jennings Grant) are off for dinner and a movie, and the kids are already in bed. The live-in maid has a sort of in-out schedule, hence the need for a dedicated babysitter. Moreover, the college-set son lives in the guest cottage on the premises whenever he chooses to unexpectedly grace them with his presence. Then there's that damn cat who skulks around. In other words, plenty of opportunities for cinematic red herrings abound. Once Jill is in the house alone (save for the kids and maybe the maid and/or the college brat), the phone calls begin. Some are from friends at a nearby high school bonfire party, some are from an obvious prankster, and some are from her sometime boyfriend Bobby (Brian Geraghty), whom she's ready to dump. And even more are from a malevolent caller who seems to know every move Jill makes. Ever resourceful, especially with shoddy cell phone response because of the altitude, Jill manages to earn an ally in Officer Burroughs (David Denman) on a land line. He devises a plan to trace the mysterious caller the next time he rings, whether it's on a land line or a cell phone. Jill's job is to simply keep him on the line for at least sixty seconds while the trace is achieved. But once that is achieved, the true horror is realized, and the unfamiliar homestead becomes a maze-like trap as Jill fights not only to save her on life but also the lives of her two young babysitting charges. An amusing sidebar to this film, which one would assume should highlight the progress of communication technology since 1979, is just how unreliable today's cell phones can be, especially when land lines remain as handy as always--providing that the killer isn't blocking one's path to them, of course. Those with a keen ear will doubtless pick up on composer James Michael Dooley's attempt to ape atonal string-based horror music, from Herrmann to Manfredini and beyond. And the Stranger (Tommy Flanagan) himself is eventually revealed to resemble a lumbering Hannibal Lecter lookalike. It came as a surprise to learn that the Stranger's telephone voice-over was by none other than genre favorite Lance Henriksen. It came as even more of a surprise how entertaining this contrived and cliched little picture managed to be. Camilla Belle's top-notch performance, coupled with director West's keen eye for rendering a resort home deadly, can be credited. There are definitely worse ways to spend eighty-seven minutes besides watching the remake of When A Stranger Calls. Right now I can't say what those ways are, but I'm sure there must be something. OFFICIAL SITE DISCUSS ON OUR FORUMS Review by Petch Lucas, for Pitofhorror.com