Thursday, January 19, 2006

"No one touches me. I don’t exist. I was never born."

We watched When a Stranger Calls, the original vision, not the one that will be coming up your ass in the near future from the maker of Con Air. Unfortunately curiosity will get the better of me and I'll waste some money on a pair of tickets to this one. I'm trying to boycott crap, I really am.

The 1979 original is the first movie from Fred Walton who brought us the good April Fool's Day and some perhaps bad TV movies like The Stepford Husbands. I really did not like Stepford Husbands. Stranger Calls stars Carol Kane and Charles Durning both still act frequently today and returned for the Walton directed TV sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back (1993), that I have yet to see. I'm surprised the two are not appearing in cameos for the remake, like I heard Michael Berryman will be doing for the Hills Have Eyes remake.

The role of the chilling killer in the original, one Curt Duncan, was the last to be played actor Tony Beckley who died in 1980. It's his voice that really did it, as the most memorable sequences in this movie involve telephone calls. I'm not so sure what this remake is going to do that Scream didn't. The phone-play scares in that movie are really still fresh in audiences minds since Scream sequels and rip-offs followed that movie on into the early 2000's. Ten years since Scream, but it really feels like ten minutes.



Are you ready to be subjected to my prank calls? "Why haven't you checked the children?" or worse "Why haven't you checked the bunny?"

Your voice hunny is too distinguishable. The pranks would not work. Plus, Buns would be sleeping right next to me in bed, so there would be no need to "check the bunny".

Admit it Cub, you just want to see the new one in the theater so you can hold hands with me in the dark.

Yes, the reason I want to see the new movie is so we can hold hands in the dark. ;)

3 comments:

Stacie Ponder said...

I haven't seen this movie in so long, and I can't remember...is the whole "the call is coming from inside the house!" the big finale?

I ask because I saw the 3-hour trailer for the remake, and they give away that line/concept in the trailer. I guess everyone knows that twist by now (which kicked ass in the original), so it's not so shocking. But it seems like they reveal his presence early-on in the new version and there's going to be alot of "survival" bullshit. Meh.

When a Stranger Calls Back is actually pretty good!

Curt Purcell said...

Whoa--if that's Cub, that's a really stunning picture!! I'm jealous! Uh, ahem, sorry, haven't seen the movie. ;-)

warrenzone said...

Curt, it's really her.