The TSL’s Grindhouse: Final Exam (dir by Jimmy Huston)

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1981 slasher film, Final Exam, opens with a familiar scene. A couple is making out in a car. A man (played by Timothy L. Raynor) comes along and kills them both.

Why does the man do this? Is he an escaped mental patient, like the killer who always appear in the urban legend about the man with the hook? Is he an angry father, upset that students have been parking near his farm and corrupting his children with their sinful ways? Is he an occultist, hoping that a blood sacrifice will bring about the end of the world? Is he a jilted lover or an unemployed day laborer or a zombie or an international assassin or a former fat boy looking for vengeance on the students who pulled the prank that caused him to drop out of college? Seriously, what is this guy’s deal!?

We never find out. That, in itself, makes Final Exam unique. The Killer is not only not given a motive, he’s not even given a name! He’s just someone who shows up and starts killing. No one knows him and he doesn’t appear to know anyone that he kills. The fact that he’s so anonymous is actually a factor in the film’s favor. The flamboyant motivations that are given to most slasher villains tend to serve as a distancing device for the audience. It’s easy, for instance, to dismiss Jason Voorhees because we know that the idea of him drowning and then somehow showing up in the woods just doesn’t make any sense. The convoluted backstory of Michael Myers (or at least the Myers who was present in the original, pre-reboot Halloween films) eventually became so ludicrous that it made it easier for audiences to say, “Well, it’s just a move.” Final Exam‘s motiveless killer is actually far more true to life. In real life, it’s rare that we ever learn the motives behind the crimes. By making the Killer anonymous, Final Exam takes away one of the tools that the audience can use to assure themselves that it’s only a movie.

Unfortunately, the scenes following the opening murder are so inept that the audience is instantly reminded that they’re just watching a movie and not a particularly well-made one at that. It’s final exam time on campus but several students aren’t ready to take their Chemistry exam. So, a fraternity fakes a shooting spree — yes, you read that correctly — and manages to get the exam delayed for a day. That means that, while all of the other students have gone home, the chemistry students stay on campus so that they can study for their final exam. And, of course, the killer is on his way to the campus as well….

While the killer makes his way to campus, we sit through several scenes of campus hijinks. It’s a weird mix of horror and comedy. We meet a few students who are obviously destined to victims. Neurotic Radish (Joel S. Rice) is likably nerdy. Lisa (DeAnna Robbins) is having an affair with one of her professors, but at least she has a great first name. The frat boys are doing steroids and tying each other to trees. Apparently, spending the night tied to a tree is some sort of initiation ritual. That’s not a good situation to find yourself in when there’s a killer stalking the surrounding area.

Yes, the killer does eventually arrive on campus but it seems to take him forever. Once he does arrive, he starts killing everyone that he meets and, again, his lack of motivation makes him far more disturbing and frightening than he has any right to be. It really is the ultimate nightmare. Not only is someone trying to kill you but he’s doing it just because. There’s no reason for his actions and therefore, there’s no way to talk him out of it. There’s no secret to distracting or stopping him. You just have to run and hope you can escape. Cecile Bugdadi plays Courtney, who is pretty obviously destined to be the final girl. She gives a good performance and you definitely want her to escape but again, the film is so poorly paced that, by the time she gets her chance to face the Killer, the majority of the audience will probably have checked out, either mentally or physically.

Final Exam has a cult following, which I kind of understand. It really is the epitome of what people imagine when they imagine a typical, low-budget, early 80s slasher film. It represents an era. But for me, it’s just too uneven to work.

International Horror Review: La Llorona (dir by Jayro Bustamante)

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Enrique Monteverde (Jose Diaz) lives in a mansion in Guatemala. He’s an old man, one who look harmless on first glance. He always has an Oxygen tank nearby. His family says that he’s suffering from Alzheimer’s and, therefore, can’t always be held responsible for some of the things that he might say. He shamelessly leers at the younger woman who work in his home. His family says that he’s always been a flirt but he doesn’t mean any harm or offense. His family insists that he’s just an old man with dementia who is hoping to pass away peacefully while surrounded by his loved ones.

The protestors who gather daily outside of Enrique’s mansion have a different opinion of the man. They chant and hold up signs illustrated with the faces of their missing relatives. Before he retired, Enrique was a general. He fought the communist guerillas. Previously, he was convicted of committing genocide against the indigenous people of Guatemala but his conviction was overturned by a higher court. There are other retired generals who know that, if Enrique had gone to prison, it would not have been long until they followed him. Just because people are going on trial and even getting convicted, that’s not guarantee of justice.

Enrique’s wife, Carmen (Margarita Kenefic)m insists that Enrique is innocent and that all of his accusers are lying. Enrique’s daughter, Natalia (Sabrina De La Hoz), is less sure while his granddaughter, Sara (Ayla-Elea Hurtado), just thinks of Enrique as being her somewhat goofy grandfather. Meanwhile, his housekeeper, Valeriana (Maria Telon), remains strangely devoted to him. Even after a scared and confused Enrique fires a gun in the house because he swears he heard someone moving in the darkness, Valeriana stays. The rest of the household staff quits. Alma (María Mercedes Coroy), a young woman from Valeriana’s village, comes to the home to work as a maid.

Enrique continues to insist that some sort of curse has been placed over the mansion and that something evil has entered the house. Is he just suffering, as his family assumes, from dementia or is he correct? Even as the protests continue outside and the enigmatic Alma hints that she has a secret of her own, Carmen finds herself haunted by nightmares and visions of her husband’s crimes.

La Llorona is a film that combines two horrors, one legendary and one very real. There is, of course, the legend of the weeping woman. She is said to haunt the night, crying for her drowned children and, in some cases, killing anyone who tries to help her. And there’s the very real horror of the war crimes that were committed, by various military dictatorships, against the indigenous people of Central and South America. Though Enrique may be a fictional creation, the crimes that he and others committed were not. La Llorona is more than just a haunted house story. It’s a film about the crimes of the past and how those crimes continue to haunt the present. Like many prominent men, Enrique is protected not by the loyalty of those he worked with but instead by the knowledge that the minute one guilty war criminal actually pays for his crimes, they’ll all end of paying. The political and legal establishment will do what it has to do to protect itself by protecting men like Enrique. But, as this film demonstrates, the sins of the past cannot be escaped in present.

Unfortunately, the premise is a bit more interesting than the execution. The film’s deliberate pacing often lends La Llorona a dream-like feel but, in other scenes, the film just feels slow. The idea of the legendary weeping woman acting as a sort of vigiliante is an interesting one but the story itself is a bit predictable. That said, the cast all give strong and memorable performances and the film uses the horror genre to discuss disturbing truths that many would rather ignore. Flawed or not, La Llorona is a good example of how the horror genre can be used to comment on the past and the present.

La Llorna was a Guatemala’s submission for the 2020 Oscar for Best International Film. Though it deserved a nomination for ambition alone, it didn’t make it beyond the 15-film shortlist. Fortunately, nominated or not, the film can currently be viewed on Shudder.

Horror Film Review: Silent Hill (dir by Christophe Gans)

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, Silent Hill.

I first saw this movie way back in 2006, when it was first released into theaters. At the time, I knew nothing about Silent Hill, beyond the fact that it was based on a video game that a lot of my friends seemed to like. I have to admit that I had a really hard time following the plot and yet the film still totally creeped me out. The film was one of those movies that created such an atmosphere of impending doom that the real world looked and felt different when I left the theater. For the rest of that night, I found myself feeling paranoid about any sudden shadows.

I’ve watched Silent Hill or, at the very least, parts of Silent Hill a few more times over the years. The plot still makes little sense to me, though I am now a bit more familiar with the game that inspired the film. Over the years, a handful of the special effects have aged a bit poorly, with many of the once-fearsome monsters now looking somewhat cartoonish. And yet, when the film works, it really, really works. There are certain scenes in this film that still surprise and frighten me, even though I’ve already seen them. One character, for instance, is burned alive and I still have to look away when the fire consumes them. The thing is that, even if the CGI now looks a bit cartoonish, the atmosphere remains. That feeling dread continues to snake its way through every scene in the film and into the consciousness of the viewer.

I rewatched the film earlier today. I’m feeling nervous tonight. Maybe it’s just because I’ve got a lot of writing to do and we’ve got some home repair people coming by tomorrow to do some work. Or maybe, it’s because I’m worried that I’m suddenly going to find myself in some sort of shadow world, being menaced by blind but stabby nurses.

The film opens with Rose (Radha Mitchell) and her husband, Christopher (Sean Bean) trying to figure out why their adopted daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), is sleepwalking and having nightmares about a town called Silent Hill. Silent Hill is in West Virginia and was abandoned after a mysterious natural disaster. Rose decides that visiting the town is the best way to solve the mystery. However, after an automobile accident, Sharon disappears and Rose finds herself wandering around the town and getting attacked by monsters and occultists. Meanwhile, Christopher is also wandering around Silent Hill, accompanied by a helpful deputy (Kim Coates), but it’s hard not to notice that his Silent Hill seems to be signifcantly difficult from the Silent Hill that Sharon and motorcycle police officer Cybil (Laurie Holden) have found themselves in.

It’s a confusing plot but director Christopher Gans does such a good job of creating and maintaining the film’s creepy atmosphere that it doesn’t matter that you’re not always sure what’s going on. And while it’s true that there’s perhaps too many scenes of Sharon walking from place to place, there’s also some truly frightening scenes, like the one with all of those killer nurses. The film plays out like a dream and, as we all know, you don’t question dream logic. Instead, you just go with it.

And so, 15 years after the film was first released, I’m usually willing to just go with Silent Hill. I’m at peace with never quite understanding it. Instead, I appreciate it for what it is: a creepy and surreal experience that will make you think twice before stepping out into the fog.

Horror Book Review: Switched by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh hell yeah!

Dear readers, I present to you perhaps the greatest book ever written by the one and only R.L. Stine!

Now, I’m not going to spoil too much of this plot because, seriously, this book is crazy. Once the plot twists start, they never stop. Once the first two dead bodies show up, it’s a nonstop parade of bloody corpses. People don’t just die in this book. They get their heads ripped off and then they sometimes show up alive a few pages later. That’s the type of book this is. First published back in 1996, Switched is like the ultimate Fear Street book.

Basically, Nicole is having a really bad day. Her parents are being totally overprotective. Her boyfriend wants to dump her because he says that she’s too much too handle, even though Nicole can’t imagine what he means by that. (Don’t worry, Nicole! I’ve been there!) She didn’t do her class project because she just didn’t feel like it. Nicole’s obviously suffering from a case of terrible ennui.

However, her friend Lucy has a solution! Lucy says that there’s a wall near the cemetery and basically, all you have to do is climb the wall with someone else and then jump off the wall while holding that person’s hand and then — BOOM! — it’s body switch time! Lucy says that they can switch bodies and Nicole can get a chance to live Lucy’s perfect life and maybe make out with Lucy’s boyfriend. Nicole says sure!

So, they jump off the wall and, quicker than you can say Freaky Friday, it works! Unfortunately, no sooner has the body switch occurred than Nicole starts to find dead bodies all over the place! Could Lucy be killing them while using Nicole’s body!? Or is something even stranger happening?

Seriously, this book is a lot of fun. Not only do you get the totally insane body switch plot and a lot of gore and impure thoughts but you also get nonstop twists. And, as opposed to certain other Stine books, the twists all make a strange sort of sense in Switched! I won’t say much else about Switched because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone but, if you ever feel the need to prove that R.L. Stine could tell a good story and keep the reader guessing, Switched is the book to go with!

Book Review: The Legend of the Planet of the Apes: Or How Hollywood Turned Darwin Upside Down by Brian Pendreigh

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Recently, while going through all the books that I’ve collected over the years, I came across a copy of The Legend of Planet of the Apes: Or How Hollywood Turned Darwin Upside Down. It’s a book by a Scottish film critic named Brian Pendreigh and it takes a look at the Planet of the Apes film franchise, from the 1968 original all the way to Tim Burton’s now-forgotten remake. Though I couldn’t find a copyright date in the book, it was obviously written long before the Planet of the Apes franchise was rebooted and sent in an entirely new direction by 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

That’s okay, though. The three recent Planet of the Apes films all had moments of brilliance and Andy Serkis probably deserved an Oscar nomination for his performances in all three of them but they have also tended to overshadow the original Planet of the Apes and its sequels and, as this book points out, the first 5 films were actually pretty good. (Okay, okay — Battle of the Planet of the Apes isn’t great, even if it is entertaining. But I defy you not to cry at the end of Escape From The Planet of the Apes. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is wonderfully subversive with its abrupt and nihilistic ending. Conquest of the Battle of the Apes is probably even more relevant today than it was in the 70s.) While the majority of Pendreigh’s book focuses on the production of the original Planet of the Apes, he writes enough about both its sequels and the short-lived Planet of the Apes television show to make a convincing argument that the original franchise itself deserves to be held in higher regard than it often is.

It’s a good book, though I do wish Pendreigh had been a little bit less obvious in his loathing of Charlton Heston. Certain writers will never forgive Heston for not being a liberal. Heston, of course, was hardly the only Republican to be a star during the 50s and the 60s. John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, James Cagney (from the 50s onward), Robert Mitchum, and many others leaned to the right. However, John Wayne, Gary Coper, Robert Mitchum, and even Jimmy Stewart were largely associated with westerns and war films, two genres that were already considered to be thematically conservative. Heston, on the other hand, appeared in left-wing dystopian sci-films like Soylent Green, The Omega Man, and Planet of the Apes. While other Hollywood conservatives were supporting the blacklist, Heston fought to get Orson Welles hired to direct Touch of Evil. He appeared in film that were critical of capitalism and blind patriotism and fanatical militarism. He did everything that a left-wing actor was supposed to do but he did it while voting Republican and a lot of film writers will never forgive him for it. As a result, people far too often tend to act as if Heston’s films were good despite Heston when, in all actuality, Heston’s macho persona and his willingness to subvert it (or at the very least, his willingness to allow his directors to subvert it) is what made so many of his film memorable and important in the first place. One reason why the endings of both Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes continue to resonate after all these years is because they featured Charlton Heston, rendered helpless and driven mad.

Admittedly, when it comes to dismissing Heston, Pendreigh is not as bad as some. He acknowledges the importance of Heston’s performance to the success of the original Planet of the Apes. And yet, he can’t resist complaining about Heston’s later political activities or his admittedly pompous view of himself. Anytime an actor is quoted as saying something good about Heston, Pendreigh is sure to also include a quote from someone saying something negative. It’s a distraction that takes away from discussing the films. One gets the feeling that the author was deeply troubled by the fact that praising Planet of the Apes would require him to also offer up some praise for the film’s star.

But …. no matter! Regardless of however he felt about Charlton Heston, Brian Pendreich clearly appreciated the Planet of the Apes films and that genuine appreciation comes through in this book. In fascinating and rewarding detail, it explores the controversy of who, among the many people who worked on developing the film, deserves the credit for coming up with the original’s classic final scene. It examines the circumstances that led to Edward G. Robinson leaving the role of Dr. Zaius. It takes a look at the career of Pierre Boulle, who wrote the somewhat forgotten novel that led to the films in the first place. And it provides a fair look at what worked (and occasionally didn’t work) about the film’s sequels.

If you’re a fan of the original and its sequels, this book is a must-have.

A Blast From The Past: Donald Pleasence Guest Stars On Columbo

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A few days ago, we observed the birthday of Donald Pleasence, a great actor who became a horror icon with his performance as Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween. However, 5 years before a generation of filmgoers first met Dr. Loomis, Donald Pleasence played a wine connoisseur-turned murderer on a classic and much acclaimed episode of the classic detective show, Columbo.

Largely due to the battle of wits between Donald Pleasence and Peter Falk — two of the best character actors of their generation — Any Old Port In A Storm has come to be seen as one of the best episodes ever of this still much-beloved detective show. This episode originally aired on October 7th, 1973, just two days after Pleasence’s birthday. Today, on the 48th anniversary of the episode’s airing, the Shattered Lens is proud to share Donald Pleasence and Peter Falk in Any Old Port In A Storm!

As we frequently say around these parts, enjoy!

Horror on the Lens: Faust (dir by F.W. Murnau)

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s Horror on the Lens is a silent German film from 1926. Based on the legend of the alchemist who sold his soul to the Devil, Faust was dismissed by European critics when it was intially released but it has since been recognized as one of the great cineamtic examples of German Expressionism.

It was after directing this film that Murnau traveled to Hollywood and directed his masterpice, Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans. (Murnau was also responsible, many years earlier, for directing Nosferatu.) The role of Fasut was played by Swedish actor Gosta Ekman, who tragicaly developed an addiction to cocaine while making the film and who would die as a result in 1938. Playing the role of Mephisto is German actor Emil Jannings, who would later go to win the very first Academy Award for Best Actor. Unfortunately, with the advent of sound, Jannings — who had no interest in learning English — returned to Germany and, after making some classic films with Marlene Dietrich, spent the rest of his career appearing in Nazi propaganda films. Whether or not Jannings was a committed Nazi or just an opportunist remains a point of cotention but it’s still undoubtedly not the career path that one would hope for one of the very first Oscar winners.

Here, for the first time on the Shattered Lens, is Faust:

International Horror Film Review: Manhattan Baby (dir by Lucio Fulci)

Posted on October 6, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Manhattan, baby!”

That’s what a friend of mine yelled a few years ago. Jack was a choreographer who had just received a call from someone in New York City, offering him the chance to come work on an off-Broadway show. He accepted, of course and then he hugged everyone who had been standing nearby, listening to the call.

“Manhattan, baby!” he shouted.

Now, the show itself didn’t really work out but Jack did get a trip to Manhattan out of it and really, I think that’s what everyone was excited about. No matter how many bad things you may hear about New York City, it’s hard not to get excited when you hear the word Manhattan. For many, Manhattan represents culture, sophistication, and wealth. For others, Manhattan represents crime, inequity, and alienation. Across the world, Manhattan stands for everything that is both good and bad about America. Just the word Manhattan carries a power to it. You would never get excited if someone announced that they had gotten a job in Minnesota, for instance. If Jack had shouted, “Minnesota, baby!,” we all would have been concerned about him. Minnesota? Who gives a fuck? But Manhattan …. Manhattan has power, baby!

Manhattan also lent its name to one of Lucio Fulci’s post-Zombi films and the title just happened to duplicate Jack’s proclomation, Manhattan Baby. Released in 1982, Manhattan Baby is often cited as being the last of Fulci’s “major” productions. While his career was reinvigorated by the success of the films he made with producer Fabrizio De Angelis (including Zombi 2 and the Beyond trilogy), Fulci and De Angelis had a falling out over Manhattan Baby. Fulci claimed that De Angelis essentially forced him to make the movie, despite the fact that Fulci himself did not have much interest in the script. Initially, the film was to be a special effects spectacluar with a large budget but, after the controversy surrounding Fulci’s The New York Ripper, the budget was drastically scaled back and the special effects were done on the cheap. Fulci later said that he felt the movie was terrible and that it set back his career.

As for what the film is actually about, Manhattan Baby deals with …. well, the plot is not easy to describe. Fulci’s films were always better known for their surreal imagery than their tight plots and, even by his standards, Manhattan Baby is all over the place. The film opens in Egypt, where archeologist George Hacker (Christopher Connelly) is struck blind when he enters a previously unexplored tomb. Meanwhile, his daughter, Susie (Brigitta Boccoli), is given an amulet by another blind woman.

Back in Manhattan, George waits for his sight to return and Susie and her little brother, Tommy (Giovanni Frezza, who played Bob In The House By The Cemetery) start to act weird. It turns out that their bedroom is now some sort of demensional gateway, from which snakes sometimes emerge. At the same time, the gateway occasionally sucks people through and they end up stranded in the Egyptian desert. Why? Who knows? Is Susie possessed or does the gateway operate independently from her? Why does she occasionally glow a weird blue color? Why do she and her brother suddenly seem to hate their nannny (played by Cinzia De Ponti, who was also in The New York Ripper)? It all has something to do with the amulet but the exact details of how it all works seems to change from scene-to-scene. Eventually, it turns out that the owner of the local antique shop knows about the amulet and its evil designs. Unfortunately, all of his stuffed birds come to life and peck his eyes out. Meanwhile, Susie’s parents and her doctors wonder why her latest x-ray seems to indicate that Susie has a cobra living inside of her and….

Like I said, it doesn’t really make any sense and, despite the power of the name, the meaning behind Manhattan Baby as a title is never really explained. In fact, more time is probably spent in Egypt than in Manhattan. It’s easy to assume that the film was called Manhattan Baby because it was felt that the title would appeal to American audiences but, when then the film was released in the U.S., it was actually retitled Eye of the Evil Dead in an attempt to disguise it as being a sequel to Sam Raimi’s classic shocker. (This was actually a common practice as far as the Italian film industry was concerned. Many films were retitled to disguise them as being a sequel. Fulci’s Zombi 2, for instance, recieved that title because, in Europe, Dawn of the Dead was released under the title Zombi.)

One can understand Fulci’s frustration with Manhattan Baby but, at the same time, is it really as bad as he often said it was? Yes, the plot is incoherent but that’s to be expected with a Fulci film. Yes, the special effects are cheap but again, that’s kind of part of the charm when it comes to Italian exploitation films. While Manhattan Baby never duplicates the ominous atmosphere of Zombi 2 or achieves the same sort of surreal grandeur as The Byond trilgoy, there are still enough memorable, if confusing, moments to make it watchable. The sequece where a shot of a man standing in a doorway cuts to a shot of him lying dead in the desert works surprisingly well. The scene where the shop owner is attacked by reanimated birds is both ludiscrous and scary, in the grand Fulci tradition. With their emphasis on foolhardy explorers ignoring curses, the Egyptian scenes feel almost as if they could have been lifted from one of the Hammer mummy films. Manhattan Baby may not be Fulci’s best but it’s hardly his worst.

In fact, with its obsession with blindness, Manhttan Baby is actually one of Fulci’s more personal films. Fulci was diabetic and reportedly lived in fear that he would someday lose his eyesight. Many critics, including me, have suggested that he dealt with this fear by having people lose their eyesight in his movies, often in the most violent ways possible. Manhattan Baby is full of people losing the ability to see. George Hacker is rendered blind in Egypt. The mysterious Egyptain woman hands out amulets to people who she cannot see. The store owner loses his eyes. One of George’s colleagues falls on a bed of spikers and, of course, one spike goes straight through an eye. Manhattan Baby is all about blindness and only be getting rid of the amulet can George hope to once again truly see the world and the people that he loves. If only illness could be tossed away as easily as an amulet.

Despite Fulci’s disdain for the final result, Manhattan Baby is hardly the disaster that it’s often made out to be. Those who aren’t familiar with Fulci’s unique aesthetic will undoubtedly confused by the film but, for those of us who know the man’s work, Manhattan Baby may be a minor Fulci film but it’s still an occasionally intriguing one.

Horror Film Review: When A Stranger Calls (dir by Fred Walton)

Posted on October 6, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Have you checked the children?” the stranger on the phone asks the terrified babysitter, who is unaware that the children are already dead and that the call is …. COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!

That’s the premise behind both an oft-repeated urban legend and the opening of the 1979 film, When A Stranger Calls. I’ve often seen the original When A Stranger Calls described as being one of the scariest films ever made. That’s not quite true, of course. The first 20 minutes or so are effective. The final scene has a few intense moments. The majority of what lies in-between feels like filler, albeit well-acted filler.

When A Stranger Calls opens with Carol Kane as Jill, a teenage babysitter who is terrified one night by a caller who keeps asking her if she’s checked on the children. This sequence — really, a mini-movie all of its own — is so well-executed and suspenseful that many people assume that the entire film is just Jill dealing with the mystery caller. Actually, that’s just the first few minutes and, once the location of the killer has been revealed, Kane disappears from the film for an extended period. That’s a shame since Kane’s empathetic performance is perhaps the best thing that When A Stranger Calls has going for it. She’s so convincing as the emotionally shattered babysitter that it doesn’t matter that, at the start of the film, she’s obviously not a teenager.

Instead, the middle part of the film focuses on John Clifford (Charles Durning). Clifford is a former policeman-turned-private investigator. He is obsessed with Duncan (Tony Beckley), the man who called Jill at the start of the film. Duncan has just escaped from a mental institution and Clifford has been hired to track him down. Clifford is convinced that Duncan will try to find Jill. Duncan, meanwhile, wanders through the sleaziest sections of downtown Los Angeles, briefly living with a pathetic alcoholic named Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst). Clifford, of course, is right about Duncan wanting to find Jill. And Clifford is so determined to kill Duncan that he might even be willing to use Jill as bait….

After the brilliantly horrific opening sequence, it’s impossible not to be disappointed with the drawn-out middle section of When A Stranger Calls. Durning, Dewhurst, and especially Beckley all give good performances and downtown Los Angeles is so repellent that you’ll want to take a shower afterwards but, narratively, there’s really not much happening. Clifford finds Duncan. Duncan runs away. Duncan acts like a jerk and gets in a fight. Tracy drinks. The old school cop Clifford scowls at the sleaziness of the world while Duncan continues to lose what little sanity he has left. Give the film some credit for not portraying Duncan as being some sort of charming, loquacious master criminal. He’s a total loser, as all serial killers are despite the later popularity of fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. Duncan hates both himself and the world with equal fury. But, that said, the narrative stalls during the middle part of the film. There’s only so many time you can watch two men chase each other down a trash-strewn street before it gets dull.

Fortunately, Jill does eventually show up again and, after an hour of relentless sleaziness, you’re happy to see Carol Kane, again. Jill is now married and has children of her own. And soon, she’s again getting a phone call asking if she’s checked on the children….

And, again, the closing sequence is scary, even if it’s not quite as intense as the opening. (The opening was scary because we didn’t know what the killer looked like. By the time Duncan finds Jill a second time, we now know that Duncan is a sickly-looking alcoholic who can’t handle himself in a fair fight.) The film does have one great jump scare left in its arsenal of tricks. And yet, it’s impossible to watch When A Stranger Calls without wishing that the whole thing had just focused on Jill instead of getting sidetracked with Clifford searching Los Angeles.

When A Stranger Calls will always have a place in horror history. “Have you checked the children?” will always produce chills. It’s just unfortunate that the film spends a good deal of its running time ignoring what makes it scary in the first place.

Horror on the Lens: Baffled! (dir by Philip Leacock)

Posted on October 6, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Leonard Nimoy is a race car driver who can see into the future and who uses his powers to solve crimes!

Seriously, if that’s not enough to get you to watch the 1973 made-for-TV movie Baffled!, then I don’t know what is. In the film, Nimoy takes a break from racing so that he and a parapsychologist (played by Susan Hampshire) can solve the mystery of the visions that Nimoy is having of a woman in a mansion. This movie was meant to serve as a pilot and I guess if the series had been picked up, Nimoy would have had weekly visions. Of course, the movie didn’t lead to a series but Baffled is still fun in a 70s television sort of way. Thanks to use of what I like to call “slow mo of doom,” a few of Nimoy’s visions are creepy and the whole thing ends with the promise of future adventures that were sadly never to be.

Enjoy Baffled! Can you solve the mystery before Leonard?