"It seems pitched precisely at the demographic most-likely to baby-sit, but is so sapped of any suspense that it would hardly offend the most timid teen. Only scaredy cats would be scared of cats bursting out of shadows and the face of Camilla Belle seems to register no fear at all. "When a Stranger Calls": don't answer." NINEMSN REVIEWS "Stranger is one long tease that, instead of building tension around Jill’s efforts to outwit her mysterious stalker, has her run around the house, unsuccessfully calling every friend, cop and family member she knows." Tim Grierson L.A. WEEKLY "For real thrills, rent the original, turn down the lights and scare yourself silly." Elizabeth Weitzman NEW YORK DAILY NEWS "Not as bad as it could have been, but still a great concept with no actual substance, few scares, and lots of cliches." Mike McGranaghan AISLE SEAT "The first film wasn't that great a film and it was very much eclipsed by films like Halloween, which was much better which followed it soon after. But the basic formula, I mean it still works when it's well done. And I think, Simon West is not a bad director, in fact. I mean, he does some quite interesting things here." David Strattom ABC AT THE MOVIES "This remake of a 1979 thriller starring Carol Kane isn't particularly mysterious; the earlier film had a narrowing sense of invasion, with its confined spaces and peering eyes viewed through grainy film stock. However, this new version is as clear as day: the shadows have clean edges, and the house is now a multi-storey, remote-controlled glass mansion." Lesley Chow URBAN CINEFILE "The rumbles and shrieking violins of James Dooley's score mingle, to uncanny effect, with ordinary household noises: a shower, a washing machine, or, of course, a ringing phone." Jake Wilson SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

The Inside Story

"A scary final 15 minutes, but until the climax and epilogue, we're confronted with mostly dead air." ..... John P McCarthy REELTALK MOVIE REVIEWS

I remember once being told by the National Marketing Director of an International company who had hired me: "Richard you've got a lot of good ideas. Probably fifty percent of them could be used. But if we only use five percent of them, don't be disappointed because believe me, in this company that's a pretty good strike rate." So what about those ninety five percent that weren't useable? They'd have to wait for some other situation. Even then, some would fall by the wayside simply because of the fact that while they sounded good, and I would have in all probability enthusiastically thrown my energy behind them, they really weren't all that good after all. Nearly a quarter of a century after the original "When A Stranger Calls" was released, Ken Lemberger, former co-president of Sony Pictures Entertainment thought a remake of the original terror flick was probably a pretty good idea. "When I left Sony, I asked Amy Pascal if she would mind my going through the library of features as well as the abandoned properties file to look for material to re-adapt," Lemberger recalls . "I was looking for films which weren’t overwhelmingly successful commercially and literally, the first picture that attracted my attention was "When A Stranger Calls". I remembered from the original, that it was probably the scariest twenty-minute beginning of a film I had ever seen." Lemberger took his idea to Clint Culpepper, President of Screen Gems. That brought Producer John Davis onboard. Davis, who has a love for the original recalls. "Stranger was an incredibly timeless scary thrillers. I couldn’t get that famous line "Have you checked the children?" out of my head." The three men agreed that there would have to be some changes made to upgrade the film some 28 years after its release. "We agreed to make the film more of a psychological thriller than the original, Davis explained. "Terror lies with what you don’t see versus what you do. Having a young girl trapped in a house being stalked is a really relatable, scary notion. We all know babysitters or we’ve all baby-sat, and what makes this movie scary is that it could happen to any of us. One of our worst nightmares is having a family member being put into jeopardy like this." With all those good ideas, the next thing they needed was a scriptwriter. That job would go to Jake Wade Wall who was contacted by his agent while on his way to Nevada where he would spend a week house sitting for his sister. "All I remembered from the original was a babysitter and phone calls and loving it," says the writer. "When I got to my sister’s very big house, I went to the video store and rented it. While I was watching it, I realized that I had only really remembered the first part and how scary it was." Watching the original had a profound effect on Wall who recalls, "Afterwards, I spent the first night in my sister’s house alone and every noise freaked me out, the house adjusting, the refrigerator turning itself on and off, and the wind blowing. Every noise made me jump and I felt ridiculous because I was sleeping upstairs, and not wanting to even go downstairs to get a glass of water because I was so scared!" Wall got the nod after pitching his idea for the script at a meeting with Screen Gems in Los Angeles. They would build a film around one aspect of the original film; "one girl alone in a strange house." When it came to writing the screenplay Wall says he "kept remembering that week I spent house sitting, where every little thing was frightening and I realized that we didn’t need a guy with a knife chasing a girl around a house or people getting their throats slit. What really frightens people is the expectation of fear and their own imaginations. Whatever you can imagine in your head is probably scarier than an ax or some guy holding a head in his hand dripping with blood. Hitchcock really inspired me in that way. If you remember the shower scene in PSYCHO, you’ll remember a little blood hitting the drain and her facial reaction and that was more frightening than actually seeing what happened. Stranger needed to be this way." Next cab off the rank would be to find a Director. Producer John Davis, who's 60-plus film and television productions, have earned more than $US2 billion worldwide thought Simon West was the ideal person to have in the Directors chair. Davis "liked the visual dazzle and style the director showed in his commercial work in England and thought he would provide the perfect combination needed to direct Stranger." West admits he isn't attracted to horror film but he is attracted to thrillers. So why "When A Stranger Calls"? "This piece felt much more sophisticated than the action films I’ve done," he says. "There are very few elements and I saw it as a way to spend every day working a very fine, detailed kind of craft and that’s what sold me on the project." With West on-board, the team were left with three essential elements to be filled. The lead actress, the house and the phone. Director West thought Camilla Belle would be ideal for the lead role of Jill Johnson. "I went after Camilla for many reasons," West recalls. "I had seen her previous work and I found her to be such an intelligent mature actress, beyond her years. Aside from being stunningly beautiful, one of Camilla’s strengths is that she’s so engaging on the screen that you really can just watch her without ever having to hear a word of dialogue. There are so few movies, especially for an eighteen year old, where you are in every shot, every scene, and your character is the arc of the movie, and this was a rare opportunity for her." And it wasn't just about looks either. "Audiences are much more sophisticated now than in 1978,"says West. "They expect more from characters and we see spunkier female leads now. Jill is a role model for young girls." The House measures 11,000 square feet and was designed by Jon Gary Steele. The interior was built in six weeks, and the exterior was built in five weeks. The interior sat on a stage at Culver Studios stage and the exterior rested on a lake in Franklin Canyon in Los Angeles, a state park, which was meant to double as Colorado. Steele’s design took on many forms. "We wanted the house to be modern, but didn’t want it to be sterile or cold with white walls," says Steele. "We wanted it to feel woodsy and warm. We used very few colors and kept with what we call H.C. Colors, historical colors that are earthier. I wanted it to have a uniform look all the way through. Darker tones were used than you would normally use on modern homes because the subject is scary. I wanted the house to feel like somewhat of a mazes. It’s kind of like visiting the house of mirrors." With mobile phone [or 'cell' phone] technology running rampant across the world] and intergrated in-house telephone technology more accessible, this modern day version of Stranger allows for more than was available back in 1978 when the original Stranger was in production. This aspect of moden technology is fully exploited in the film. "What we’ve made here is a really, scary thriller," says Producer John Davis. "And if we’ve done our jobs correctly, I think you’re going to have trouble sleeping after you’ve seen it." "When A Stranger Calls" was shot in thirty-seven days. Twenty-seven days were spent filming at Culver Studios in Culver City, Los Angeles, and the remaining ten days were spent filming exteriors of the house on location on a lake in Franklin Canyon in Los Angeles. Cast & Crew Bytes "WHEN A STRANGER CALLS" stars .......
Camilla Belle ["A Little Princess", "The Lost World: Jurassic Park", "The Patriot" and "Practical Magic"]; Tommy Flanagan ["Plunkett & Macleane", "Gladiator", "All About the Benjamins" and "Sin City"]; Tessa Thompson ["When a Stranger Calls"]; Brian Geraghty ["Town Diary", "Stateside", "Conversations with Other Women" and "Jarhead"]; Clark Gregg ["Lovely & Amazing", "We Were Soldiers", "Spartan" and "In Good Company"] and Katie Cassidy ["Seventh Heaven " and "The Lost"] as Tifanny.
"WHEN A STRANGER CALLS" was .......
directed by Simon West ["Con Air", "The General's Daughter", "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" and "The Sailmaker"]; screenplay by Jake Wade Hall ["Halloween: Retribution"]; original 1979 story written by Steve Feke ["When a Stranger Calls", "Papa Was a Preacher", "Keys to Freedom" and "Mac and Me"] and Fred Walton ["When a Stranger Calls", "Hadley's Rebellion", "April Fool's Day" and "The Rosary Murders"]; costume design by Marie-Sylvie Deveau ["Billy Madison", "Pushing Tin", "The Sum Of All Fears", "The Perfect Man" and "Yours, Mine and Ours"]; production design by John Gary Steele ["Cruel Intentions", "The Sweetest Thing", "Beauty Shop" and "The Dukes of Hazzard"]; edited by Jeff Betancourt ["The Good Girl", "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle", "The Grudge" and "The Exorcism of Emily Rose "]; cinematography by Peter Menzies Jnr A.C.S ["The General's Daughter", "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", "Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous" and "Four Brothers"]; original music by James Michael Dooley ["The Good Man's Sin", "Agua Dulce", "Life After War" and "The Mars Underground"]. What It's All About

"A minimum effort horror movie. It does just enough to scare easily unnerved thirteen-year-old girls, and not much else." Joshua Tyler CINEMABLEND.COM

Sixteen year old Jill Johnson would rather be spending the night with her school friends at a bon-fire but that's out of the question. Her parents have grounded her after receiving a hefty bill for Jill's excess use of her cell phone. Her father has arranged a babysitting job for his daughter looking after Dr & Mrs Mandrakis's two young children at their remote, but well appointed, lakeside home. It should be a quiet night. On arrival she learns that both children have the Flu and are already in bed. The Mandrakis's have an older son who uses a bungalow at the rear of the property and a housekeeper named Rosa. The house is secured by a monitored alarm system to which Jill is given the access code. Initially the night is uneventful until Jill starts hearing strange noises. Then the phone rings. The line is silent. It rings again. Jill hears heavy breathing. Jill suspects it's her friends making nuicance calls until she hears the words "have you checked the children?" Jill doesn't know it, but she is about to start a cat and mouse game of survival with a psychopathic killer. She will need to remain calm and keep her wits about her if she and the Mandrakis's children are to survive the night. The Verdict "Adults would be better off leaving this for the teenagers who, if they're not too old will probably get a kick out of it. If you find the constant high pitched ring of a cell phone annoying then give this a big miss. Don't be mislead by the statements pertaining to the original "When A Stranger Calls" because it wasn't all that crash hot either. Recommended as a 'filler' for when you've seen everything else at the local cinema complex." Who's Who?

Camilla Belle Tommy Flanagan Katie Cassidy Tessa Thompson Brian Geraghty Clark Gregg Derek de Lint Kate Jennings Grant David Denman Arthur Young Madeline Carroll Steve Eastin John Bobek Brad Surosky Karina Logue Rosine 'Ace' Hatem Escher Holloway Clement B Blake Carson Elrod Molly Bryant Owen Smith Lance Henriksen

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Jill Johnson Stranger Tiffany Scarlet Bobby Mr Johnson Dr Mandrakis Mrs Mandrakis Officer Burroughs Will Mandrakis Allison Mandrakis Detective Hines Officer Lewis Boom Boom Track Coach Rosa Ramirez Guy Cop One Cop Two Parent Officer Voice of the Stranger

The Crew Directed by Simon West Screenplay by Jake Wade Wall Original 1979 screenplay by Steve Feke and Fred Walton Produced by John Davis/Wyck Godfrey/Ken Lemberger Executive Produced by Paddy Cullen Original Music by James Michael Dooley Cinematography by Peter Menzies Jr Film Editing by Jeff Betancourt Casting by Nancy Nayor Production Design by Jon Gary Steele Art Direction by Gerald Sullivan Costume Design by Marie-Sylvie Deveau Run Time 87 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2006 - Sony Pictures - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2006 - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved