Carol, that is not Avon calling.
I do not have a lot of time today to do a long post, but today i want to share what I without question believe is the scariest moment ever in a movie.
The weird part is that it isn’t a movie that I actually enjoy generally, nor do I think it is a great horror movie. In fact, you could argue it isn’t horror movie at all.
The babysitter theme is a great one for horror movies. Take the moral lessons of the babysitters in Halloween. The two who are looking for their boyfriends find someone else instead. The only one who survives is Laurie. As they point out rightfully in Scream, morality = vitality in many horror movies.
However, poor Carol Kane really did nothing to deserve this.
I think many of us, men and women, but often women home alone, especially with young children in our care, have understood that fear of vulnerability of the unknown. I know I personally have received anonymous threatening calls (before cell phones) with people saying they are right outside (but that’s a whole other post.) This theme is also used successfully in the opening of the movie Scream.
Here we also get a cameo of another horror movie supporting player, Jiffy Pop.
Yet, still, When a Stranger Calls remains above all. It makes us flinch, like Carol, when we hear the phone ring. It is not longer an innocent alert of someone wishing to speak with you. It is a summons. It is a threat. It is a stinging, returning, terror.
You young people of today can’t understand what it means for a call to be traced or a landline. You can come and go as you please with your phones which almost always identify the person calling. The days of a landline meant you had to be near a house to make a phone call and in the years this movie was made, you had no idea who was calling you.
The build up was brilliant. The complete core-shaking scare of the climactic moment has never been duplicated in my opinion.
I’ve watched thousands of scary movies. And it is my firm belief that this is the scariest scene ever put on film. For a movie that didn’t exactly make a giant impact otherwise, this scene has endured.
Creative conjurings 