People who didn't like this movie... - When a Stranger Calls (2006) Discussion

[–] themoviebuff2003 16 years ago

Better than the original, IMO.

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] mybull12 16 years ago

Novastar 6--what the hell are you talking about?

I like how you feel the need to call me a jackass! That's funny. Hey, like I said, people like yourself probably have short attention spans and completely missed the suspense. Did you get distracted by talking during the film about how boring it was?

This was not the jumpy, in-your-face thriller that most people are use to. So many of the posts on this board talk about how it wasn't scary and blah, blah, blah. Next time rent Scream and you'll be a much happier person!

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[–] GuyYouWishYouWere 16 years ago

I agree...People seem to be much happier with Friday the 13th remakes and My Bloody Valentine.

This was actually a very well made horror film...Attention was paid to actual atmosphere..You know lighting, structure, Direction.... Not a pointless bunch of teens bitching around and getting sliced one by one.

It's a great remake because it keeps the integrity of the original movie.

"Once You Have It You Cannot Possibly Want It Anymore"

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[–] novastar_6 16 years ago

What integrity? Why is Jill babysitting in this movie? Because she is an irresponsible brat. Meanwhile there is a serial killer targeting babysitters and her parents decide she's going to babysit to learn responsibility? As opposed to what, standing on her feet 6 hours a day wearing a uniform and washing dishes or scrubbing toilets? We KNOW that everything up till the police calling Jill back is going to be a false alarm so there's nothing scary there. The kids do not die. Not scary. The killer only seems to target girls who are none too bright. Not scary. The girl goes waka waka at the end and this is the 21st bloody century. I see no integrity in the whole film.

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[–] Bwizzle420 11 years ago

damn straight! novastar you are correct in every way! and i must add that the person who made this thread is a moron.. says everybody who didn't like this movie has a small attention span? your brain is soup thats all i gotta say.

Don't *beep* with the original!

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[–] UpperEastSider 11 years ago

And you agree with novastar-6. Looks like your brain has also turned to soup.

A true friend walks in when everyone else walks out

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[–] UpperEastSider 11 years ago

Why is Jill babysitting in this movie? Because she is an irresponsible brat.

Why is she an "irresponsible brat"? She was a teenager. She went over her minutes and was having babysit to earn money to pay the phone bill that she went over. Ooops! Mistake! Mistakes happen! Live and learn! Again, she was a teenager. That's a time in everyone's life where we learn from our mistakes. Surely you were a teenager and was irresponsible at times, too. Cut her some slack.

Meanwhile there is a serial killer targeting babysitters and her parents decide she's going to babysit to learn responsibility?

He wasn't just targeting babysitter. He would just target anyone who was home. Remember in the first 10 minutes of the movie, there's a scene where the police are investigating the house where an entire family had been murdered the previous night. It also may not have been all over the news, especially when you consider that Jill was babysitting the night after the murder from the opening scene took place, there may not have been time for the new to circulate. Plus, the location of the first murder(s) (in the opening scene) was MILES and MILES away.

As opposed to what, standing on her feet 6 hours a day wearing a uniform and washing dishes or scrubbing toilets?

They may have had her do that, too. Who knows? You're focusing too much on the fact that they had a reason as to why Jill was babysitting, when it isn't necessary to do so. In the original (that you apparently hold so dear to your heart), there was no reason for Jill babysitting, other than the fact that the Mandrakis family had plans for the night and were in need of a babysitter. So the remake added a little bit to the story by saying Jill had to baby sit to earn money to pay for her phone bill. So what?

The kids do not die. Not scary. The killer only seems to target girls who are none too bright. Not scary. The girl goes waka waka at the end and this is the 21st bloody century.

So, you think the movie would be scarier if the kids died and if the killer targeted 'smarter' girls??

Okay...........

A true friend walks in when everyone else walks out

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[–] mybull12 16 years ago

Guy--

Im glad you agree. Overall this was a very good film. It didn't rely on stupid kids to get a scare out of you. I appreciate movies like this one.

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[–] novastar_6 15 years ago

Well let's see, the main character is a stupid kid and her friends are all stupid kids...and they relied on the intensity of watching her be scared to scare the audience. So I would say yes it DID rely on stupid kids to get a scare out of the audience.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] UpperEastSider 10 years ago

See the original just because it's good to see why other people don't like this one.

And it's good to see this one to see why people, for the most part, don't like the original. It's drags in the middle and goes completely off track.

When life knocks you down, roll over and look at the stars ⭐

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[–] eeree3 14 years ago

I think this movie was better than the 1979 version even when I saw it back then
I was impressed with the beginning and end but the rest of the movie was very dull they even advertised for the movie that the beginning and end were the reason to watch the movie. All in all I give the older version a 5 and the new
one a 7.

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[–] Falconeer 14 years ago

How does this trash keep the integrity of the original film? If you had seen the original, you would know that this "remake' only covers the first 20 minutes of the classic version. The section where the girl is in the house getting the phone calls is only how the original begins. The bulk of the film takes place a few years later, when the girl is grown up, and the stalker comes after her again. That is where the suspense begins. Call this remake what you will, but it does not show any respect to the original. what we have here is 90 minutes of watching a girl getting phone calls and looking perplexed. Not to mention, it is stupid; she believes the guy calling her is hiding outside, watching her through the windows. she is safe inside with an elaborate alarm system, and what does she do??? She RUNS OUTSIDE to look for a friend. Sorry, but this film is complete garbage, and just because it was filmed inside a cool house, does not mean it has good cinematography. Was this made for television? Because it looks like it, only not as good... The only film i can think of that was worse than this was that "Prom night" remake. That was truly awful...

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[–] UpperEastSider 10 years ago

If you had seen the original, you would know that this "remake' only covers the first 20 minutes of the classic version.

Yes because the middle of the original film is completely dull and unnecessary. Nobody cares about seeing some jellyroll of a cop run around town trying to catch a killer that has been on the loose. The title of the movie - When A Stranger Calls - really only applies to the first and last 25 minutes (or so) of the film and it's really the only reason why people saw it. The middle went completely off track.

This remake doesn't "disrespect" the original, at all. In fact, it does what the original should have done.

When life knocks you down, roll over and look at the stars ⭐

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[–] Falconeer 10 years ago

Apparently somebody "cared..." as the original movie was quite successful, while this rotgut remake was a complete failure..in every respect.

"IMdB; where 14 year olds can act like jaded 40 year old critics...'

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[–] UpperEastSider 10 years ago

while this rotgut remake was a complete failure..in every respect.

....In your opinion.

When life knocks you down, roll over and look at the stars ⭐

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[–] Falconeer 10 years ago

....allegedly.

"IMdB; where 14 year olds can act like jaded 40 year old critics...'

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[–] UpperEastSider 9 years ago

.....Right...

Respect what you have 🌌

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[–] Chara_Angel 15 years ago

Exactly! thankyou! I have not seen many horror movie, and i thought this film was crap! got on my nerves...the whole thing is this girl running around making annoying "i'm scared" noises....ugh!

I AM DINOSAUR...RAR!!!

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[–] UpperEastSider 10 years ago

...What do "I'm scared" noises sound like?

When life knocks you down, roll over and look at the stars ⭐

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[–] GregorySinger 15 years ago

I am one of the few who truly appreciate the older movies, being older myself. I can't stand these ultra fast schizophrenic movies with hip hop soundtracks which aren't appropriate to the film.

I love the original Halloween. That was a fantastic thriller. The original "When a Stranger Calls" was terrific.

I did NOT like this version of it, not because of a short attention span, but because the movie was actually bad. The directing was bad. The storytelling was subpar. The "updating" of the movie cheapened it. The cinematography was good. The editing was fine, except for all the stingers they put in inappropriate places and the flashy editing of the opening credits. The tempo of the movie was off. It just did not allow the tension to build, and the false climaaxes (fakeouts) were poorly thought out and grossly mistimed. If you want to misdirect the audience and make them jump, you have to hit them with the visual and audio simultaneously, with the climax and resolution within a second of each other, not drawn out over 6 seconds. Overall, it was a beautiful looking poorly thought out movie.

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[–] kao123 14 years ago

I agree...I loved the original one. It freaked me out big time. I learned to never let friends know where I was sitting after that. Especially since we did not have cellphones, caller id, etc. back then, it made it even scarier for me.

this was not the worst horror movie ever, just did not live up to the original. I guess things never do.

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[–] CandideForVoltaire 15 years ago

*Snore* What huh? Oh, the phone rang. Hmm...heavy breathing. Ah, the next 80 minutes will be that. Okay. *snore* Huh, the ending? Who didn't see that crap coming? Really, that's the ending. *snore*

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[–] lei3 15 years ago

I don't think a movie should be remade unless you can truly match up to the original. This movie didn't do that. It wasn't nearly as creepy as the original, the acting (especially the lead girl) was ATROCIOUS (she had a total of three expression throughout the entire movie), and I just ended up laughing at it rather than being scared.

I mean... if you look beyond the bad acting and haven't seen the original then maybe you wouldn't mind it, but otherwise... it was pretty sucktastic.

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[–] Buwzo 15 years ago

I'm sorry, but while you are correct that this wasn't the usual blood and guts fest that many people expect (which can actually be very entertaining and jumpy...) it was still not a good film, and in fact I think it was worse than some of the crappy gore fests you refer to. I did not find it suspenseful. While it tried to be, the outcomes of the dramatic build ups were predictable (the cat was the cause of suspense twice), and usually led to nothing, like the ice in the freezer. Furthermore the climax in the house was awful, couldn't they have come up with something a bit more exciting? Myself and everyone else at the viewing were all saying... seriously, is that it? Finally the ending was unoriginal, and just seemed thrown on, with no real content in the rest of the movie to back it up. There is a good reason for this movie being rated less than 5/10.

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[–] novastar_6 15 years ago

Yeah, now if they wanted to do something good and a bit more original for the babysitter and the man upstairs story, they should've had it that the babysitter KILLED the stranger, I don't care how, shoot him, stab him, break his neck, electrocute him, whatever...it would've been a hell of a lot better than her going all psychotic in the nut house at the end.

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[–] mv5 15 years ago

if youre going to ruin the movie put a spoiler notice on first, genius

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[–] novastar_6 15 years ago

We're talking about why the movie is bad, anybody who comes into this is probably going to know something's going to be given away, it always is.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] Polonius85 15 years ago

The cliches could have been done with out and the end ruined it. It didn't make any sense and it had really no bearing on the rest of the story. All in all, for a campy thriller, it wasn't horrible aside from what I mentioned.

Leave the gun...take the canolis

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[–] Jason_LR 15 years ago

I agree.
This movie wasn't so horrible as some of you guys are trying to make it look here.
Sure, it wasn't as good as the original, and yeah, you mentioned the "scariest 15 minutes opening scene ever" and yeah, I actually agree with that, agree and I second that as well, but aside from that, the originally hardly had anything else eerie going for it. Of course this one lacks all the thing that were said here, and yeah, I would like it better if the ending were diferent, cause I actually thought it was pretty stupid, but it isn't as bad nor as terrible as you make it out to be. Not even close to being as good as the original, but it doesn't even try to be.

Oh, and by the way, having jill and tiffany make out before tiffany being killed would be AWSOME.

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[–] kingmingus 15 years ago

In response to some of the earlier comments, not everyone wants blood guts and gore. I for one can't deal with lots of that. Minute amounts I can. Either way, I found this film pretty crap too. If there's no gore to 'scare' people, you need suspense. For a film as predictable as this, there is no suspense. The only thing that caught my attention in this film was that at first glance, I thought the caller was Robert Patrick.

Adopt, Adapt and Improve. Motto of the round table. - John Cleese (Monty Python)

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[–] PrivateVasquez 15 years ago

I'm a huge fan of Gore films, and on the first viewing of this remake I wasn't too impressed. I saw it again on cable and I noticed a lot of things that I didn't in the theater with all the screaming teens. It may not be very suspenseful, however it is beautifully shot, the sets were atmospheric, and it was simple. I used to bash this movie with the rest of them, but after a few viewings I find myself feeling that this is a very well made movie that sadly is just not very scary.

"Carol Anne, go into the light"!

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[–] oasis_599 15 years ago

novastar_6, you sound like just a terribly frustrated person.. if simple horror movies annoys you this much maybe you should find a new hobby? or maybe try film making? i imagine its harder than it looks there grumpy!

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[–] vin99 15 years ago

the original was nothing but 10 minutes of pleasure to watch after that it turned into biggest pain.

well this movie is such a good movie ie its extremely suspenseful and keeps you on edge and i agree your statement nowadays so called horror fans want to see breasts, sex and guts in a "perfect" horror movie.

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[–] RedHarvestMoon 15 years ago

I really liked this movie, when you look how the director had the music lead you through, and you watched her interact with the phone as if, the phone its self was a real character. However, people are right, this WASN'T a horror film. a horror film implies blood, death, a villain who surpasses human abilities. This was a suspense. A girl trapped in a house she's never been in protecting the kids and herself from a psycho man. He was just that- a man, not Jason or Freddie or Michael, just a man. a man who could bleed and hurt. Sometimes that's the scariest thing. a human being, able to go and try to attack you. They wanted to drag you through the film by not showing you the real threat yet, having YOU know he was there, but her trying to discover it herself while normal house sounds freaked her out. Who here HASN'T heard a sound in their house and jumped? let alone babysitting in a strange house far away and hear odd sounds? I just watched this movie for the second time, and I'll tell you what. I would choose this over that lame Paranormal movie any day.

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[–] PlanBFromOuterSpace 15 years ago

I agree, the phone DID seem like a character. I mean, it certainly had more personality and had more to do in this movie than any of the actors.

If I remember correctly (I saw this film once when it came out, but I seem to remember each and every thing that I hate about it, because the movie is THAT frustrating), the music NEVER stops. Even when the scene didn't call for it, it would keep going, as if it was building up to something actually happening. Maybe if things were quieter and the use of ominous music got heavier later on in the film, that would be more excusable, but earlier on when there's no reason to think that anything will happen whatsoever (and sure enough, for about the first 80 minutes, NOTHING HAPPENS), it seems to be there just to taunt us.

Oh, and what was with that cat? Didn't it get stuck in like 3 different closets or something during the course of the movie?

There's a difference between suspense and just plain wasting time. Instead of suspense, there was just the checklist of cliches that the writer went through before finally revealing the killer. I actually LIKED the opening of the movie, but showing us that the killer came from a couple hours away just destroyed the idea that it could be anyone that we were led to believe it could be.

Man, how about those ignorant lawmen? "Oh, we're sure it's nothing, so we're not going to send anyone out, and even if someone IS *beep* with ya, they're probably just kids being stupid or something". I'm paraphrasing what they said, but it's not too far off. Also, the cops show up like 5 seconds after the sitter tags the killer with the poker, so I think it's safe to assume that even when things started happening, nothing she did to hold the killer off really had any sort of effect on the outcome.

To be fair, the trailer for this movie really didn't do the movie itself any favors, as you knew that EVERYTHING that happened up to "the call is coming from inside the house!" would be meaningless and/or a fake scare (that darn cat!). The trailer made it seem like it would be a little more action-filled, like maybe she'd spend most of the movie just trying to escape this giant house, but it really ended up being a 2 minute trailer for about the last 10 minutes of the movie.

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[–] Sasou1982 15 years ago

There is nothing wrong with a suspense film... I love them. If I had never seen the original movie and if I wasn't such a fan of it then I would probably love this film. As it so happens I have seen the original and I loved the premise. To be honest, I do like the remake for what it is, but it does not have a leg to stand on if compared to the original. So, I do not compare the two because it would be a waste of time. I enjoy the remake when I want to watch something light and I watch the original when I want to enjoy REAL filmmaking.

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[–] Heavenly_Tranquility 15 years ago

There are movies out there that don't have gruesome scenes, and that do build up suspense. But THIS MOVIE was not one of those movies. Rear Window had no blood at all! That was a good movies. This movie was crap!

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] lament_of_death 15 years ago

I watched this when it came out in theaters, and I have to say I just didn't enjoy it. Obviously, it's been 4 years since I've seen it, so I'd have to give it another try to make much of an opinion. However, from what I remember I just didn't feel much suspense or connection with Jill at all. Now, I do love suspense movies. I just didn't like this one. I also didn't see the original, so I'm not biased on either side.

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