James Westmoreland | Through the Shattered Lens

Nicholas Worth in Don’t Answer The Phone

AGCK!

As a self-described lover of grindhouse and exploitation films, I have seen my share of truly icky films. But Don’t Answer The Phone, a 1980 mix of police procedural and serial killer horror, is in a class all by itself. It is not only exceptionally icky but it’s distressingly effective as well.

After I watched Don’t Answer The Phone, I actually checked to make sure all the doors were locked. Before I got into bed, I searched all the closets to make sure there wasn’t anyone hiding in there. And, as I fell asleep, I found myself thinking that maybe I should follow the advise of both Arleigh and my sister. Maybe it was time for me to finally get a gun of my own and learn how to use it.

Seriously, Bowman, I thought as I waited for sleep to come, you live in Texas. It’s totally legal to carry a gun down here so you need to take advantage of the law and make you’re ready to blow any pervert losers away! Even if you shot the wrong person, you’re cute. The jury would never convict…

That’s the type of effect that Don’t Answer The Phone had on me. It’s not necessarily a good film. With one notable (and important) exception, most of the acting is terrible. The film’s few attempts at intentional humor largely fall flat. Even with a running time of only 94 minutes, Don’t Answer The Phone feels overlong and full of unneeded padding. And yet, this is a very effective film. It did freak me out, largely because it was so crude and heartless. It strikes at the most primal fears of the viewer, that feeling that — even within the security of our own home — we may not truly be safe.

As Don’t Answer The Phone opens, Los Angeles is a city being stalked by a madman. That, in itself, is not surprising. Just taking a quick look at Wikipedia will reveal that Los Angeles has been home to a large number of serial killers. In fact, if there is anything shocking about Don’t Answer The Phone, it’s the suggestion that Kirk Smith (played by Nicholas Worth) is the only serial killer in town.

Who is Kirk Smith? He’s an overweight, bald photographer who always wears an army jacket and is obsessed with candles, body building, and strangulation. He also enjoys calling up a local talk show host, Dr. Linsday Gale (Flo Gerrish). (One wonders if Dr. Gale’s name was specifically meant to make the viewer think of The Wizard of Oz.) “Hello,” he says in an outrageously fake accent, “this Ramon!” He tells Dr. Gale that he has frequent headaches and bad urges. When he’s not pretending to be Ramon, Kirk can usually be found staring at himself in a mirror and yelling, “Do I measure up, Dad!?”

Kirk is killing women across Los Angeles and it looks like he might never be caught because Don’t Answer The Phone features some of the most incompetent cops ever! These are the type of cops who smirk at the victims and shoot anyone who doesn’t get on the ground fast enough. These are the type of cops who open fire and then say, “Adios, creep.” Civil liberties!? BLEH, THESE COPS DON’T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR RIGHTS! Of course, they do end up shooting and killing the only witness who can identify Kirk Smith as the murderer. Whoops!

If there’s anything that sets Don’t Answer The Phone apart from all the other serial killer films, it’s the performance of Nicholas Worth. Far more than the slick and erudite serial killers who dominate contemporary thrillers, Nicholas Worth is a frighteningly believable lunatic. He’s scary because we’ve all seen his type wandering the streets. We’ve all felt his stare linger for a few seconds too long and we’ve all had the same feeling of dread when we saw him approaching us. Reportedly, Worth did a lot of research on actual serial killers before taking on the role of Kirk Smith and his performance is terrifying because it is so real.

It’s icky to watch but, at the same time, it do serve to remind us that there are real life Kirk Smiths out there.

Agck! Seriously, it makes me shake just thinking about it.

I’m getting a gun…

Say what you will about the overall quality of the 1966 horror-comedy, The Undertaker And His Pals, it has an absolutely brilliant opening shot. One man on a motorcycle drives around in a circle in a parking lot. He’s wearing a leather jacket and his features are hidden underneath a white helmet. Soon, another man wearing a leather jacket and white helmet rides up on another motorcycle. And again, they circle the parking lot. And then, they’re joined by a third identically dressed man on yet another motorcycle and the three of them circle the parking lot before then driving off into the city. The night is dark, the city streets are otherwise deserted, and the entire scene is tinted an otherworldly yellow. It’s a truly creepy scene and, for those first few moments of the film, those three faceless riders are truly frightening. If you ever watch The Undertaker and His Pals, be sure to appreciate that opening scene because nothing else in the film matches it.

It turns out that our three motorcycle riders are up to no good. Two of them own a restaurant and, because they’re too cheap to actually order fresh meat, they kill people and serve them up as the special of the day. The third one is the local undertaker. Business has apparently been struggling so he’s started killing people so that he can get paid to provide them a funeral. Apparently, half of each corpse is turned into lunch meat while the other half is put in a cheap, wooden casket at Shady Rest Funeral Parlor.

Now, here’s what makes The Undertaker and His Pal such a strange movie. The murders are graphic and gory (and I imagine they were quite extreme for 1966) but the rest of the movie is an over-the-top comedy, full of bad puns and slapstick. At the start of the film, while the latest victim is being stabbed to death, the camera continually cuts to a photograph of her sailor boyfriend, looking more and more upset with each cut. Later, the undertaker accidentally steps on a skateboard and we watch as he uncontrollably careens into the middle of the street while everyone else in the film points and laughs. When the undertaker finally falls off the skateboard, we even hear a waa waa on the soundtrack. After the undertaker has his accident, the owner of the diner accidentally insults a customer and literally gets a custard pie thrown in his face. (And again, we hear that waa waa.)

And then there’s the names! The film’s first victim is named Sally Lamb. The next day, the special at the diner is literally “Leg of Lamb.” When an administrative assistant named Ann Poultry complains about the poor quality of her leg of lamb and threatens to call the health department, the next day’s special is “Breast of Chicken.”

Ann worked for and was dating a detective named Harry Glass (James Westmoreland, appearing here under the name Rad Fulton). After her death, Harry is … well, Harry really doesn’t seem to care. Harry is the film’s nominal hero but he really doesn’t do anything. In fact, he is remarkably stupid. Though he claims that he’s trying to solve his girlfriend’s murder, he seems to spend most of his time unknowingly eating her down at the diner.

The Undertaker and His Pals is weird and yet strangely watchable. Of course, it helps that the film is only 66 minutes long and that the acting so cartoonish (and, I think, intentionally so) that it’s impossible to take the movie seriously. (If the film was, in any way, believable, it would be almost unbearably grim and misogynistic.) Fortunately, the film ends with clips of the entire cast coming back to life and laughing, letting us know that no one was intentionally harmed or traumatized and apparently, everyone had a great time making The Undertaker and His Pals.

I imagine the film was made to capitalize on the success of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s similarly over the top Blood Feast. Ultimately, The Undertaker and His Pals works best as a weird time capsule of what was shocking in 1966.