When a Stranger Calls (1979) on Netflix
Jill Johnson is minding the children of Dr. and Mrs. Mandrakis, who are ill and asleep upstairs. The telephone rings, and an unknown man asks whether she has checked on them.
- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb6.4/1016,174 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes41%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jill Johnson, a teenager, takes a babysitting job with Dr. Mandrakis and his wife. Their children are ill and asleep on the upper floor, and Jill is told not to wake them. Through the evening an unknown man telephones. He says nothing at first, then asks whether she has checked on the children, and finally why she has not. Jill takes the calls for a prank, then grows frightened and calls the police.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about When a Stranger Calls (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Filming in downtown Los Angeles in November 1978 coincided with the Skid Row stabbing murders, and the production used some of the sites where victims had been found, including the steps of the Los Angeles Public Library.
- The ratings board voted unanimously for a PG, but its chair, Richard Heffner, viewed the film and called the board back to reconsider, arguing the treatment of its theme was too unsettling for children; a majority then voted to give it an R.
- The film expands Fred Walton and Steve Feke's short The Sitter (1977), which the pair said they based on a newspaper article about a young woman babysitting in Santa Monica, California, who received calls from her attacker inside the house.
- In January 1980 the film won both the Prix de la Critique and the Prix Special du Jury at the Avoriaz International Fantastic Film Festival in France, the first time a single film had taken both categories.
- The first 13 minutes of Wes Craven's Scream (1996) pay homage to When a Stranger Calls, whose opening 23 minutes gave it a large cult following as one of the scariest openings in film history.
- The Brentwood house used for the first act stood at 321 S. Chadbourne Ave., and the Lockhart home of the final act at 2722 Club Drive in Los Angeles; both houses have since been torn down.
