Unbearably scary in spots, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS begins with a sequence that will test anyone's threshold for fright. A baby sitter, Jill (Kane), gets a creepy phone call from an unknown man who asks, "Have you checked the children?" Jill thinks the call a prank and hangs up, but when the
caller persists, she telephones the police, who offer to put out a tracer. After another phone call, the police contact Jill and tell her that the calls are coming from inside the house. To her horror the kids have been slaughtered by a crazed merchant marine (Beckley), who is captured by
detective John Clifford (Durning) before he can kill Jill. Seven years later the killer escapes the mental hospital and returns to terrorize the now-married Jill who has kids of her own.
The first part of this film is an exceedingly taut little chiller that stands on its own, and in fact was once a short film entitled "The Sitter." Director Fred Walton decided to expand the clever premise into a feature and, unfortunately, that is where the film begins to fall apart. Dependent on
an increasingly unlikely series of coincidences and lapses of logic, the movie lurches along to its climax, which again pits Jill against the crazed murderer. Despite the plot contrivances (which have become essential to horror films over the years), WHEN A STRANGER CALLS will still frighten most
audiences out of their skins.
