When a Stranger Calls

When a Stranger Calls (1979) possesses some choice scares, but falters due to a poor story structure and an unwelcome, unenlightening emphasis on the titular stranger, a mild-mannered British serial killer named Duncan. Only the first and last twenty minutes are based upon "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs" urban legend, and they are the scariest parts of the film by far. Despite Carol Kane's top billing, she only appears during these sequences. The bulk of the narrative revolves around Charles Durning's detective character, John Clifford chasing after Duncan (Tony Beckley) as he hides among the homeless and stalks a grizzled, lonely woman, Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst). The film spends much time in detective stations as a police procedural, which is almost always bad for horror (see the Saw sequels for further examples of this) and trying to humanize Duncan, which strips him of his darkness, mystery, and menace. Successful horror films, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Sporloos depict their respective serial killer characters at great length and show the motivations, torments, and lack of empathy that drive them to kill. When a Stranger Calls focuses enough on Duncan's polite initiation into a community of homeless to render him unthreatening yet not enough to show a thread-line between his non-killing behavior and his serial killing. That said, director Fred Walton demonstrates an adept ability to suggest creepiness in a mundane setting like a suburban upper-middle-class house. At times, the multiple depths of the camera's field of vision provoke constant suspense that something hostile is lurking.