Written And Directed by Fred Walton
William Landis: "I am not the reflection of anything. I am not an illusion. I am the truth. I'm invisible. Unknowable. You people are the real illusionists. You people are the real illusionists!"
There are some films that really don't require a sequel. In fact, you could argue the majority of horror movies themselves should've been one and done affairs but here's one that really didn't need a second outing. However it got one.
It's a sequel that also started off the same one the first movie did too. This time, the babysitter's named Julia Jenz (Jill Schoelen), who was hired to look after the children of Dr. Schifrin (Kevin McNulty) and his wife (Cheryl Wilson). So far, so familiar.
Then we had Julia going through what her predecessor went through. Creepy calls from a stranger pretending to have a broke down car before it eventually transpired that the children were kidnapped and never found again. This naturally had a knock on effect on Julia.
Once again, the movie did a time jump but kept the focus on Julia, who was attending college but also being stalked. This also put Julia into the cross hairs of Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) and Detective John Clifford (Charles Durning). The former had also become a counsellor at Julia's college and saw a kindred spirit in the traumatised woman.
The rest of the movie upped Julia's paranoia, had Jill work through some of her own issues while giving Clifford his heroic moment. The stalker this time around also happened to be a Ventriloquist (Gene Lythgow) with a penchant for black body makeup. I'll admit that made for a striking visual in some scenes.
While I get that the movie was trying to make this stalker more enigmatic, I think some backstory might have helped a little with his terror campaign against both Julia and Jill. However, he did receive a much deserved comeuppance by the end of this one with the movie having two Final Girls.
- Julia Jenz and Jill Johnson. Both the same alliterative name types there.
- There was no mention of Jill's husband and children in this movie at all. Why was that?
- There's a dedication to Tony Beckley at the end of this movie.
- Chronology: A five year time jump took place before halfway into the movie.
When A Stranger Calls Back isn't a bad sequel. It's even quite unsettling in some parts. It just basically reheats the same story with a slightly less compelling antagonist and secondary protagonist. Not terrible, but certainly not exciting.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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