When A Stranger Calls (2006 Film)
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''When a Stranger Calls'' is a 2006 American psychological horror film directed by
Simon West Simon Alexander West (born 17 July 1961) is an English film director and producer. He has primarily worked in the action genre, most notably as the director of the films ''Con Air'', ''Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'', ''The Mechanic (2011 film), Th ...
and written by Jake Wade Wall. The film stars Camilla Belle, Brian Geraghty,
Katie Cassidy Katie Cassidy (born November 25, 1986) is an American actress. Following several minor television roles, she came to attention as a scream queen after starring in the horror films ''When a Stranger Calls (2006 film), When a Stranger Calls'' (2006 ...
and
Clark Gregg Robert Clark Gregg Jr. (born April 2, 1962) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter. He portrayed Phil Coulson in films and television series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe from 2008 to 2024, and voiced Coulson in an animated tele ...
. Belle plays a babysitter who starts to receive threatening phone calls from an unidentified stranger, played by both Tommy Flanagan and
Lance Henriksen Lance Henriksen (born May 5, 1940) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in various science fiction, action and horror genre productions, including Bishop in the ''Alien'' film franchise and Frank Black in the Fox television series ...
. It is a remake of Fred Walton's 1979 film of the same name, which became a
cult classic A cult following is a group of Fan (person), fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some List of art media, medium. The latter is often cal ...
for its opening 23 minutes, which this remake extends to a feature-length film. The film was theatrically released on February 3, 2006. It was panned by critics but was a moderate box office success, grossing $67.1 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.


Plot

A local sheriff enters a home where multiple homicides occurred; an intruder killed three children A.J., Charlie & Katherine and their babysitter Stacy using his bare hands. Meanwhile, in Colorado, 125 miles away from the crime scene, 16-year-old Jill Johnson is babysitting for the wealthy Mandrakis family, as a consequence of exceeding her cell phone minutes. Mrs. Mandrakis shows her around and mentions their live-in housemaid, Rosa. After the parents leave, Jill receives threatening phone calls from someone who mostly says nothing and then hangs up. She initially believes it is her friends playing a prank, but when she contacts them, they deny it. While the Mandrakis' two children are asleep upstairs, Jill's friend Tiffany visits. Fearing this may get her in trouble, Jill asks Tiffany to leave. Tiffany is ambushed by an unseen intruder while walking to her car. The unknown person calls Jill, indicating he can see her. Alarmed, Jill calls the police, who say the call can be traced by keeping the caller on the line for at least sixty seconds. While waiting for the phone to ring, Jill sees a shadow moving in the guest house. Believing it is the Mandrakis' older son back from college, she investigates, but finds the guest house empty. While there, the unknown caller calls, convincing Jill he is watching her. She keeps him on the phone to trace the call, only to realize he has called a different line. Looking out the window, Jill sees a light has been turned on inside the Mandrakis' house. Believing the maid, Rosa, is home, Jill searches for her, but finds no one. The phone rings again, and the caller remains quiet; Jill keeps him on the line for a minute so the call can be traced. Jill hears the shower running in the maid's room, but upon checking, the bathroom is empty. The police call her back saying the calls are coming from inside the house and she and the children need to get out. Horrified, Jill finds Tiffany's body on the bathroom floor and flees. Jill finds the children hiding in their playroom. She sees the intruder in the loft. They escape into the greenhouse where Jill discovers Rosa's body under the water. The assailant enters and searches the greenhouse. Jill locks him inside, but he breaks out and attacks her. During the altercation, Jill turns on the fireplace to scorch the assailant's back then stabs his hand into the hardwood floor with a fireplace poker, then rushes out to find the police have arrived. The assailant is arrested. Days later while recovering in the hospital, Jill is awakened to a popping balloon from a group of “get well” balloons floating at her ceiling. She tries calling the nurses station but gets no answer. She gets out of the bed and walks to the door and looks out, but she finds the nurses station and hallways are empty of people. Her room phone starts to ring, and she goes back in the room to answer it. While looking at her reflection in the mirror, the assailant appears behind and grabs her. She shrieks hysterically, waking from her hallucination as the doctors and her father try to stop her frantic panicking.


Cast


Production

Screen Gems Screen Gems is an American film production company owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate, Sony Group Corporation. ''Screen Gems'' has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the de ...
first announced production of ''When a Stranger Calls'' in August 2004, with Jake Wade Wall penning the script. Screen Gems had plans to release both a remake of the original film and a sequel titled ''When a Stranger Returns''.


Casting

Evan Rachel Wood Evan Rachel Wood (born September 7, 1987) is an American actress. She is the recipient of a Critics' Choice Television Award as well as nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. She began acting in the 1990s, a ...
was offered the role of Jill, but turned it down. Camilla Belle was then approached and almost turned the role down due to her personal dislike for horror films but West, the director, convinced her that he was going more for a
psychological thriller Psychological thriller is a Film genre, genre combining the thriller (genre), thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting ...
so she accepted. To prepare for the role, Belle had to do two months of weight-training and learning how to run. Belle was injured twice on the set; she struck a wooden bridge, cutting and scarring her hand, and also slammed her head against a glass window.


Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
occurred from January 1 to February 28, 2005, in California. Bellarmine-Jefferson High School was used to portray the high school seen in the film while Signal Hill was used to portray the carnival shown in the film. Running Springs was used as the filming location for the road sequences. The house that was used in the film is located at
Culver Studios The Culver Studios is a film studio in Culver City, California. Originally created by silent movie pioneer Thomas H. Ince, the studios have operated under a multitude of names: Ince Studio (1918–1925), De Mille Studios (1925–1928), Pathé St ...
in
Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. It is mostly surrounded by Los Angeles, but also shares a border with the unincorporated area of Ladera Heights, Californi ...
.


Music


Score

''When a Stranger Calls: The Complete Original Motion Picture Score'', 15-instrumental songs composed by James Dooley, was released on February 10, 2006.


Distribution

For the release of the film,
AOL Instant Messenger AOL Instant Messenger (AIM, sometimes stylized as aim) was an instant messaging and presence information computer program created by AOL. It used the proprietary OSCAR protocol, OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow us ...
ran ads beckoning users to IM Jill020306. When messaged, "Jill" (a Colloquis-style program) made small talk before panicking, as she received calls from a stranger asking her to check the children. She then gives the user her phone number (a toll-free 877 number) and asks them to call her. When users call, they hear an ad for the movie. Also, around the time of the DVD release, a new screen name appeared, Jill051606, to tie in with the DVD release date on May 16, 2006. It does not involve calling her, but instead she directs users to a video security system on the official DVD site where the shadow of the stranger passes by frequently. As a marketing promotion for the film, a MySpace profile was created for Jill051606 featuring photos from the film. Users could add the profile as a friend, leave comments, and read Jill's blog.


Home media

The film was released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
and UMD on May 16, 2006. Special features include two audio commentaries (one with Camilla Belle and Simon West; the other with Jake Wade Wall),
deleted scene A deleted scene is footage that has been removed from the final version of a film or television show. There are various reasons why these scenes are deleted, which include time constraints, relevance, quality or a dropped story thread, and can al ...
s, a 20-minute making-of featurette, and trailers. A
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
version of the film was released for the first time by Mill Creek Entertainment on October 4, 2016, in a triple feature with '' I Know What You Did Last Summer'' (1997) and '' Vacancy'' (2007). This disc contains none of the extras found on the DVD. This initial release was discontinued, and a new version was released by Mill Creek titled "Queens of Scream - Triple Feature" on February 5, 2019. The new release is virtually identical, with the only differences being a new cover on the case and the inclusion of a DVD copy alongside the Blu-ray.


Reception


Box office

The film opened at number one with $21.6 million. It then made $9.1 million in its second weekend and $5 million in its third. The film went on to gross a total of $47.9 million domestically, and $19.2 million internationally for a total worldwide gross of $67.1 million.


Critical reception

''When A Stranger Calls'' was critically panned. On the review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 8% based on 90 reviews and an average rating of 3.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "''When a Stranger Calls'' ranks among the more misguided remakes in horror history, offering little more than a rote, largely fright-free update to the original." On
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, it has a weighted average score of 27 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...
gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


Accolades

In 2006, ''When a Stranger Calls'' was nominated to the
Golden Trailer Awards The Golden Trailer Awards are an American annual award show for film trailers founded in 1999. The awards also honor the best work in all areas of film and video game marketing, including posters, television advertisements and other media, in 10 ...
in the category "Best Thriller".


Possible sequel

Writer Jake Wade Wall discussed the possibility of a sequel in September 2020. His treatment would have the film be a remake of the second half of the original film, where Jill Johnson is older now and has a family and the killer has escaped the asylum, citing the success of ''
Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...
'' (2018) as an inspiration.


See also

*
List of films featuring home invasions There is a body of films that feature home invasions. Paula Marantz Cohen says, "Such films reflect an increased fear of the erosion of distinctions between private and public space... These films also reflect a sense that the outside world is mo ...
*
The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs The babysitter and the man upstairs—also known as the babysitter or the sitter—is an urban legend that dates back to the 1960s about a teenage babysitter who receives telephone calls that turn out to be coming from inside the house. The basi ...
* ''
When a Killer Calls ''When a Killer Calls'' is a 2006 direct-to-DVD horror film directed by Peter Mervis and starring Sarah Hall, Mark Irvingsen, Robert Buckley, Derek Osedach, and Rebekah Kochan. It was distributed by B movie company The Asylum. The film was release ...
'' (2006), a mockbuster of this film released by
The Asylum The Asylum is an American independent film production and distribution company based in Burbank, California, known for producing low-budget, direct-to-video films, in particular mockbusters, which capitalize on the popularity of major studio f ...
.


References


External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:When A Stranger Calls When a Stranger Calls (film series) 2006 films 2006 horror films 2006 thriller films 2000s American films 2000s English-language films 2000s horror thriller films 2000s serial killer films 2000s teen horror films American horror thriller films American serial killer films American teen horror films Davis Entertainment films Fiction about child care occupations Films about home invasion Films about stalking Films about telephony Films based on urban legends Films set in country houses Films set in the 2000s Films directed by Simon West Films produced by John Davis Films produced by Wyck Godfrey Films scored by James Dooley Films set in Colorado Films shot in Burbank, California Films shot in Vancouver Horror film remakes Remakes of American films Teen thriller films Thriller film remakes English-language horror thriller films English-language crime films Screen Gems films