When A Stranger Calls

Year: 2006

Grade: B-

Country: USA

Director: West

Review

better than i expected. i have seen the original (1979) and its sequel (don’t ask why, i don’t even know), but this one is the best. it’s not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it ratchets up the suspense fairly well throughout the picture. i think that most will consider it too slow, but i found it to be well-paced.

there were a few too many “cat jumping into the frame” type of scares, but other than that i felt that the scares were well-built. it didn’t rely too much on tightening the music or sudden cuts (though it did use those). it actually built some scares in pretty respectable ways. the director would establish a pattern of subjective camera shots and then switch that pattern by cutting to a shot of the protagonist. the effect of this is that the audience expects to see what she is seeing, but when west cuts to a shot of the protagonist it gives the impression, for a second, that she is the stalker. it’s a minor effect produced entirely through editing, but it’s efficacious. a good enough portion of the film is psychologically scary and the acting isn’t horrible so i’ll give it a B-.

Watched in theater