When a Stranger Calls *** (1979, Carol Kane, Charles Durning, Tony Beckley, Colleen Dewhurst, Rachel Roberts, Ron O’Neal, Rutanya Alda) – Classic Movie Review 4525

Co-writer/ director Fred Walton’s 1979 cult horror thriller follows in the wake of the similar but better Halloween (1978), but is held together by the powerful presence of excellent Charles Durning as John Clifford, the cop obsessively chasing a psychopathic killer maniac (‘We’ve traced the call, it’s coming from inside the house’).

Carol Kane is also excellent as Jill Johnson, the understandably nervous young woman threatened by a killer seven years after he murdered the children she was babysitting as a high-schooler (‘Have you checked the children?’).

There is little blood but there are enough tension and shocks to ensure quite a fair degree of fright, well handled by director and co-scriptwriter Walton, who stages a particularly scary opening scene and effective climax.

Also in the cast are Tony Beckley, Colleen Dewhurst, Rachel Roberts, Ron O’Neal, Steven Anderson, Rutanya Alda, Carmen Argenziano, Sara Damman, Richard Bail, William Boyett as Sergeant Sacker, Kirsten Larkin, Carol O’Neal, Ed Wright, Louise Wright, Michael Champion, Dennis McMullen, Wally Taylor, Lenora May, Randy Holland and John Tobyansen.

Walton scripts with Steve Feke.

It was remade as When a Stranger Calls in 2006. Kane and Durning return for a TV sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back, in 1993.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4525

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