00s Movie Review - When a Stranger Calls

Director: Simon West
Genre: Horror/ Thriller
Runtime: 87 minutes
Year: 2006
Starring: Camilla Belle, Tommy Flanagan, Katie Cassidy, Tessa Thompson, Brian Geraghty, Clark Gregg, Derek de Lint, David Denman

Description: During a babysitting gig, a high-school student (Camilla Belle) is harassed by an increasingly threatening prank caller.

Review: Jill just broke up with her boyfriend Bobby, because he made out with her best friend. They talked it out over the phone, which caused Jill’s phone bill to go over the limit. Her father want her to earn the money back and take on a babysitting gig. On the night of a huge school party, Jill is stuck babysitting for the Mandrakis family. They live in a remote mansion. When Jill arrives, the kids are already in bed, so it seems to be a peaceful night. Because she doesn’t know the house, it starts scaring her a bit. Especially when Jill starts receiving creepy phone calls from a stranger.
“When a Stranger Calls” is a remake from the original film from 1979. But like most horror movie remakes, it’s not a memorable film. It’s filled with clichés. It takes at least an hour before the mystery caller becomes really threatening, before that it’s just false jump scares. Not even jump scares, just simple scares. And the characters are all very flat. The motives for the stranger are also lost.
“When a Stranger Calls” is a perfect film to watch when nothing else is on TV. And is easy to forget. Not a great horror film.

Rating: 2 / 5

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 157: Black Christmas

Director: Glen Morgan
Genre: Horror/ Thriller
Runtime: 84 minutes
Year: 2006
Starring: Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert, Andrea Martin, Oliver Hudson, Kristen Cloke, Crystal Lowe, Karin Konoval, Dean Friss, Robert Mann, Jessica Harmon, Leela Savasta, Kathleen Kole, Cainan Wiebe

Description: An escaped maniac returns to his childhood home on Christmas Eve, which is now a sorority house, and begins to murder the sorority sisters one by one.

Review: When he was younger, Billy killed his family. Now he is improisoned and tries to escape every year around Christmas. His goal is to return to his childhood home and celebrate Christmas there. He never managed to escape, until this Christmas. The house Billy used to live, now belongs to a sorority. The girls celebrate Christmas there, when all of a sudden they receive strange phone calls. From Billy, who warns the students he is going to kill them.
“Black Christmas” is a remake of the 1974 horror classic. The runtime of this film is short, which is perfect for a film like this. The story starts immediately and the tempo is high. But this also has a down side. The characters are very one dimensional, even the killer. You really don’t care who lives or dies, in fact almost every girl in this sorority house is unlikeable. And when they die, they die in the same way. No originality there.
“Black Christmas” is a disposable and forgettable horror flick.

Rating: 1,5/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2015 - # 128: A Nightmare On Elm Street (Remake)

Director: Samuel Bayer

Genre: Horror/ Thriller

Runtime: 98 minutes

Year: 2010

Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Katie Cassidy, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Thomas Dekker, Kellan Lutz, Clancy Brown, Connie Britton

Description: The spectre of a dead child rapist haunts the children of the parents who murdered him, stalking and killing them in their dreams.

Review: In 1984 an icon was born. That’s when sadistic murderer Freddy Krueger started haunting dreams and killing his victims. There were a lot of sequels and spin-offs. So in 2010 it was time for a remake, because we didn’t have that yet. And I really wished we never had.

A remake, it doesn’t sound as fun as it is. Especially not when you know Michael Bay produced it.

First the casting. They are hardly credible, because they are supposed to be sixteen and look much older. And their performance is very bland as well. It’s just very uninteresting to watch them for one and a half hour. It even appears that actress Rooney Mara hated to be in this movie so much, she almost decided to quit acting.

In this film, Jackie Earle Haley plays the role of Freddy Krueger. His performance is okay. The strong point of the original was that we never completely saw Freddy, just parts and shades. Now we see him in full glory, already very early in the film. And where the first Freddy looked like an actual burned man, this one is clearly wearing make-up. With that, Wes Craven’s film was scary because of the suspense and the sinister atmosphere. Bayer doesn’t manage that at all, because he shows us too much of Freddy and even Freddy’s past. No mystery left for us. And the jump scares only come from loud sound effects, not the actual events in the film.

If you expected anything new, don’t. Some scenes were actually literally recycled. “A Nightmare On Elm Street” doesn’t add anything, a good example of an unnecessary remake.

Rating: 1,5/ 5