WHEN A STRANGER CALLS

When I was a kid I was always super scared of horror movies – specifically the covers of the horror movies in the video store. I used to do a bit about this in stand-up, which would go “I was afraid that the villains would leap out of the covers and haunt my nightmares, like Pinhead from Hellraiser, Jason fromFriday the 13th or the phone from When A Stranger Calls.” Some would say that’s a perfect joke that would stand the test of time, others would suggest that even back in 2015 making a reference to the 2006 remake of When A Stranger Calls was pushing people’s memories too far.

When A Stranger Calls is a surprisingly effective remake of a telemovie from the 70s that has a great title that is also the premise, and that premise is ‘aren’t creepy phone calls creepy’. Did When A Stranger Calls invent the ‘the phone call is coming from INSIDE the house!!’ trope? We’ll never know because I cannot muster up the energy to switch tabs and do a quick Google search.

When A Stranger Calls stars Camilla Belle who looks like you should know her from something but it’s possible I only recognize her from the last time I watched When A Stranger Calls. She’s babysitting in an impossibly big mansion when she starts getting creepy phone calls from a creep and the police have to inform her that yes, the calls, well, you see, they, I know it’s going to be hard to believe, but they are in fact, wait for it, coming from, hold your breath for this one, inside the house!!!

Where would I fit into When A Stranger Calls? Well, let me take you on a mind journey all the way back to the year 2003 when I had a community radio show on WOWFM Penrith Community Radio Station based in St Marys in Western Sydney (WOW stands for 'Way Out West' and not 'WOW, that’s a bad name for a radio station'). My absolute favourite thing to do was make prank phone calls live on the air, which I was definitely one hundred percent not allowed to do, but Merrick & Rosso were doing them and goddamn if I didn’t want to get in on the action – so how would I end up in this phone based thriller? Let’s take a look.

IF I WERE IN 'WHEN A STRANGER CALLS' I WOULD: GET IN TROUBLE FROM THE STATION MANAGER FOR PLAYING A SKA SONG THAT HAD THE WORD 'FUCK' IN IT AND HAVE TO GIVE UP MY TIMESLOT