i loved the slow,ponderous 'psychological' middle section,i loved the theme of loneliness and madness,and the detectives sense of vengeance. it relieved the tension of the first act (you cant keep that kind of terror up for 90 mins..the audience would be exhausted) and it cranks it up slowly towards the end for a scary finale.
sharei love the whole film too!
tony beckley as the villain/bad guy/psycho/etc. was just amazing.
it's a shame that "When A Stranger Calls" is rated so low on IMDB. :(
I too loved this whole picture. I first saw it on TV and was sooooo freaked out by the beginning. babysitting never felt the same again. I like the cat and mouse chase of the middle section. When it picks up with the sitter 7 years later, i find it hard just to breathe normally.
share
Yes!. I think the more simple-minded and generic horror fans did not appreciated the original character study of the killer, and simply wanted more scares or easy suspense.
The middle part is great. The killer is shown as vulnerable (the scene in the bar, his loneliness...) which gives the movie a realistic and poignant touch. Actually I think the middle part is way better than the stereotypical ending so I hate that typical imdb review that goes "great start and ending, boring middle part".
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I agree in general that the middle part contributes significantly to the film. The main problem with the remake is that it basically stretches the first 20 minutes of the original into a 90-minute film. It is simply impossible to sustain the viewer’s interest for that long, when we know that practically nothing would happen until the end. More importantly, the middle part of the original film enables us to understand better the mindsets of the characters – especially that of the killer – in the film. We actually develop some kind of sympathy for him. By contrast, we know absolutely nothing about the killer in the remake.
It may appear a little strange to talk about sympathy for the killer when we know he murdered two children at the very beginning. But the court had ruled that he was insane and there is no reason why one should not accept that. In the film, after his escape from the mental institution, he didn’t harm or even threaten anyone until he tried to kill Jill at the end. He was probably just feeling lonely and helpless. (He had no money and had to beg in the streets). He was not violent towards the middle-aged woman he picked up at the bar, even after he learned that she had betrayed him. They treated each other decently. It was the other people who were nasty to him. One guy in the bar beat him up when he tried to start a conversation with the woman. The woman later betrayed him and helped the detective to set a trap. The detective himself had turned into a hit man and relentlessly tracked him down. He clearly intended to murder him while he was sleeping rather than bring him back to the institution I think because of all that, he decided he just had to go back to finish what he left off after killing the children seven years ago – namely, to kill the babysitter. In any case, this is my interpretation. In my opinion, the middle part of the film provides an interesting study of the psychology of the killer and the other characters.
I think one main reason why many people do not like the middle part of the film is that the story just becomes rather disjointed. Jill disappeared from the scene after the first 20 minutes, and the focus shifts totally to the escaped killer and the detective hunting him down. We aren’t told what happened to Jill after her traumatic experience, and in fact we don’t even know whether she would return to the film later on. I think there would be fewer objections to the second part, if the film gives more emphasis to the continuity of the narrative by including some scenes on what happened to Jill and her family after her traumatic experience, rather than brings her back suddenly at the end. It is rather ironical that the film appears to offer more insight into the psychology of the killer and the detective rather than the mental state of the girl after those terrible murders.
"It may appear a little strange to talk about sympathy for the killer when we know he murdered two children at the very beginning."
More than a little strange, Henry. We should feel sympathy for him because he's insane? That's pretty idiotic, don't you think? The piece of sh!t should've been put to death.
I like the whole thing.
I'm riding an elephant to your house. I'll see you at six.
i love the whole film as well. Its the first horror film i ever saw as a child and it scared the hell out of me when i seen it. Tony Beckley is one of the best villains ever. he plays the role of Curt Duncan so terrific (its the only film i ever seen him in as sadly he passed away from cancer after filming wrapped)
Personally i always too the ending of the film to mean that he wasnt truly dead as the last shot is of the house in view of Duncan's chilling eyes.
Yes i like the middle section as well, i like the whole film.
shareI didn't like the middle section. In " Scream " we found out that is scarier when killer dosen't have a motive, when we don't have anything about him and that is why remake works better for me. That killer can easily kill anyone.
In original, he is out just because of revenge on Jill.
In the original, they made a killer so boring that I wanted to shot my computer.
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All 3 acts are good, but the film jumps around between different Genres, that can be appealing in some cases but not in others.
The title in my opinion far more accurately describes the Remake, in this it only fits the 1st 20 minutes.
This is ultimately more of a Portrait of a Serial Killer type film, or maybe a detective film, with the Suspense thriller being just a glorified prologue.
"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"
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And the Remake of this is also Suspenseful for the entire film. I tend to prefer more then 90 minutes from a film however.
"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"