When a Stranger Calls (2006 film)

infobox movie
name=When a Stranger Calls

---

caption= Theatrical Release Poster
director= Simon West
writer= Jake Wade Wall
starring= Camilla Belle
producer=John Davis
Wyck Godfrey
Ken Lemberger
music= James Dooley
cinematography=Peter Menzies Jr.
editing= Jeff Betancourt
distributor= Screen Gems
runtime = 100 min.
language=English
budget = $15 million
gross = $66.9 million
released= February 3, 2006
Followed By= When a stranger Calls 2amg_id = 1:328104
imdb_id=0455857

"When a Stranger Calls" is a 2006 remake of the 1979 film with the same name. In the film, baby-sitter Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle) receives increasingly threatening calls from a brutal serial killer who she first assumes is simply a juvenile prankster. A sequel has been confirmed and "Heroes" actress Hayden Panettiere will replace Camilla as Jill Johnson, and the film should be released in 2009 or 2010. It is unknown if it will be a remake of When a Stranger Calls Back.

Plot Summary

The young Jill Johnson is being punished by her parents after going over her allowed cell phone minutes. She is not allowed to drive or use her cell phone. She is hired to baby-sit for a couple. After showing her around, the children's parents leave, and Jill feels she can mind herself, knowing the kids are upstairs recovering from the flu. Now that she's alone she snoops around the house until she hears a loud bang.

Jill believes it's simply Rosa, the live-in maid, or Dr. Mandrakis returning to get something, so she ignores the noise. She sits down and reaches for the phone. Just before she picks it up, it rings. Heavy breathing can be heard on the other end of the phone. After a while Jill hears the line go dead and she hangs up. She notices Rosa is no longer feeding the birds in the atrium.

After receiving another call, Jill finds that it came from her friend Tiffany, who came to visit her. When she asks how Tiffany got in, she simply replies that the garage door was open. Jill closes the garage door while Tiffany looks for some alcohol to drink. When Jill asks her to leave she tries to persuade her to come to the bonfire party with her, but Jill refuses so Tiffany leaves. While she reaches her car, she hears footsteps in the woods next to the house and rushes to get into her car, dropping her keys. When she picks them up, she gets in the car only to find it won't start up. After trying several times it starts up and then she reverses the car to find carefully placed branches blocking the gate. After rushing out to move it, we now see from the killer's point of view, which is rushing up from behind. The last we see of Tiffany is her turning around with a horrified look on her face. The camera then shows Jill who hears banging on the front door, she races to it thinking it's Tiffany. When she opens it she finds no one there, she closes it and returns to the living room.

Jill gets more phone calls only to realize the person calling can see her. Then, he says the legendary line, "Have you checked the children?" Jill goes upstairs and checks on the children. Once she sees that they are okay, she goes back downstairs. As she reaches the bottom of the stairs, the phone rings. She answers it and hears the person say, "How were the children?" She suddenly starts to panic, and quickly calls the police, but officer Boroughs tell Jill that unless the caller is making a real threat to her they can't do anything. Finally they agree to trace the call. When she's done on the phone, she sees someone inside the guest house near the main house. She thinks it is Todd (the father's older son) or Rosa and decides to go there. Jill takes a flashlight and a candle stick as a weapon and runs to the guest house. She enters and finds the room empty, but when she looks out of the window, she sees a light go on in the children's room. She races back to the house and goes up to the third floor to Rosa's room. She finds this empty too, with the shower turned on in Rosa's bathroom. As she stands back upright from turning off the shower, the police call to warn Jill that they have traced the call, and that the caller is somewhere inside the house. Suddenly she hears a phone ring and quickly turns around, and she is overwhelmed with sadness and fright as she finds out that it is her friend Tiffany's (who joined her at the house earlier in the night) cell phone ringing. Finding Tiffany's dead body, apperantly strangled to death, in Rosa's bathroom, Jill goes downstairs to get the two children. She enters the childrens' room, expecting them to be sleeping under the bed covers. When she lifts up both bed covers, she realizes that there were only pillows under the covers. She looks around the room to look for the children. She finally finds both of them inside their toy chest. As Jill turns to leave the bedroom, she notices that a chest of drawers has been pulled in front of the door, she looks around frantically and finally looks up to see "the stranger" sitting in the rafters of the open-toped wooden ceiling.

Jill and the children run inside the play room as the stranger jumps from the ceiling. Jill ties the door handle to a hook on the wall and locks themselves in. The stranger tries to get into the bathroom, and the kids make an escape to the indoor courtyard. As the three scramble for a hiding spot, Jill notices lights turning sequencially around her indicating that the man is moving towards the stairs, down to them. By turning on the water jet, she manages to get the kids into a hiding spot and herself hidden under the water. As the man enters the courtyard, we see Jill submerge in the pond only to see the dead body of Rosa weighed down by a rock, she resurfaces and seconds later is attacked by the man. The children then run to the main door, but they are too small to unlock the deadlock at the top of the door frame. She then manages to trap the man in the atrium (ripping some of her hair out in the process) and finds the kids in the fireplace. They all run for the door, but the stranger breaks out and chases after them. The kids make it out, but Jill is pulled back inside. She fights the stranger, but he easily overpowers her and begins to strangle her to death, until Jill stabs his hand with a fire poker, pinning him to the floor. She manages to escape, and runs into the arms of a police officer, who has just arrived. While she is leaving to go to the hospital she sees the killer in a police cruiser. They look at each other for a long time, and the cruiser drives away. The police say they will have 4 officers on him around the clock but Jill simply replies "That's not enough." The audience learns that the killer is responsible for the murders of 15 people, most of them being young women and children. News reports state that the police are looking for the links between the victims and that the killer's identity is unknown at this point.

Later, as Jill is recovering in the hospital, she finds herself alone with a ringing phone echoing through the halls. She turns around to see the stranger reflected behind her in the mirror. She screams and screams, however, it is just a dream. Doctors run in to assist her as she cries "He's in the house! He's in the house!!" As the camera pans out, more people rush in the room to help her, showing that she was psychologically terrorized from the whole experience.

Advertisement

For the release of the film, AOL Instant Messenger ran ads beckoning users to IM Jill020306. When messaged, "Jill" (a Colloquis-style program) made small talk before panicking, as she received calls from a stranger asking her to check the children. She then gives the user her phone number (a toll-free 877 number) and asks them to call her. When users call, they hear an ad for the movie. Like many automated messaging agents, "Jill" is easily confused, which resulted in some unintentionally humorous moments —

"Jill": I think I am going crazy. Look, all my friends are at a party - you need to call me and listen in on this call.
"User": How are you doing?
"Jill": I'm doing great. You?

Sometimes other glitches occur, such as Jill asking what she should do before telling the user that a stranger is calling her.

Also, around the time of the DVD release, a new screen name appeared, Jill051606, to tie in with the DVD release date, May 16, 2006. It does not involve calling her, but instead she directs you to a video security system on the official DVD site where the shadow of the stranger passes by frequently.

MySpace.com also ran an advertisement: the profile for [http://www.myspace.com/Jill051606 Jill051606] , in which users can add the profile as a friend, leave comments, read the blog and IM.

Credited cast

*Camilla Belle - Jill Johnson
*Tommy Flanagan - The Stranger
*Katie Cassidy - Tiffany
*Lance Henriksen - The Stranger's voice
*John Bobek - Officer Lewis
*Molly Bryant - Mom
*Madeline Carroll - Alison
*David Denman - Burroughs
*Brian Geraghty - Bobby
*Kate Jennings Grant - Kelly Mandrakis
*Escher Holloway - Cody
*Derek de Lint - Dr. Mandrakis
*Brad Surosky - Bookish Kid
*Tessa Thompson - Scarlet
*Kevin Wethington - Dennis Sheller

equel

A sequel is in the works to the 2006 film. Camilla Belle will not reprise her roll in the film, instead Hayden Panettiere will take on the role of the main character, Jill Johnson. A full cast list has not yet been released. The film is scheduled for a 2010 release.

Response

Critical consensus was negative, with the average grade on Yahoo! Movies being a "D", despite the film's 21.6 million dollar opening setting the record for a movie opening on Super Bowl XL weekend. [ [http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-02-06#film2 Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com - Studio Briefing - 6 February 2006 ] ] On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 10% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 84 reviews, with the consensus that the film is "a poorly acted, fright-free remake". [ [http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/when_a_stranger_calls/about.php#consensus ROTTEN TOMATOES: Movies – Top Movies, Trailers, Tickets & Showtimes ] ] The biggest criticism of the remake was that it gave away the moment of suspense from the original by revealing the source of the calls in the previews, and also the fact that the film just wasn't scary. The problem arguably results from the fact that the remake amputated about half the original plot. Reviews of the 1979 movie continually praise the fact that Curt Duncan isn't just a faceless superpowered psychopath - which is exactly what the villain in the 2006 remake is.

As of January 10, 2008, the film grossed a total of 47.9 million dollars in the domestic box office, and 66.9 million dollars worldwide. [ [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=whenastrangercalls06.htm When a Stranger Calls (2006) ] ]

The movie was released on May 16, 2006 for PSP and DVD. Special features include two commentaries (one with Camilla Belle and Simon West; the other with Jake Wade Wall), deleted scenes, a 20-minute making-of featurette, and trailers.

Worldwide

The film grossed a total of 66.9 million dollars worldwide. In its first week, it grossed 24.8 million dollars. [ [http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/WHSTC.php When a Stranger Calls - Box Office Data, Movie News, Cast Information - The Numbers ] ]

Alternate titles worldwide:
*Mexico/Colombia/Venezuela/Ecuador: Cuando Un Extraño Llama
*Spain: Cuando Llama Un Extraño
*France: Terreur Sur La Ligne
*Germany: Unbekannter Anrufer
*Italy: Chiamata Da Uno Sconosciuto
*Portugal: Chamada De Um Estranho
*Brazil: Quando Um Estranho Chama
*Serbia: Kad stranac pozove
*Poland: Kiedy dzwoni nieznajomy
*Vietnam: Khi người lạ gọi điện

References

External links

* [http://sonypictures.com/movies/whenastrangercalls/site/ Official site]
* [http://au.rottentomatoes.com/search/full_search.php?search=when+a+stranger+calls "When a Stranger Calls"] at Rotten Tomatoes
*imdb title|id=0455857|title=When a Stranger Calls
* [http://www.countingdown.com/movies/3730291 "When a Stranger Calls"] at CountingDown.com
*snopes | link =http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/babysit.htm | title = The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs
* [http://www.xdafied.com.au/movies/reviews/10.html "Film Review"] Xdafied.com.au

Box Office Leaders USA
before = Big Momma's House 2
date = February 5
year = 2006
after = The Pink Panther