Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) is babysitting the children of Dr. Mandrakis(Carmen Argenziano) at their home. When the children are asleep, Jill receives a telephone call from a man who asks her if she has checked the children. At first, Jill dismisses the telephone calls as a practical joke. However, as the calls become more frequent and threatening, Jill becomes frightened and decides to call the police, who promise to trace the caller if Jill keeps him on the telephone line long enough. Jill, frightened to extreme measures, arms herself as she receives one final call from the nefarious stalker. Soon after the conversation, Jill receives a call from the police, only to find out that the stalker is calling from inside the house. ( from the 1979 film, ’When A Stranger Calls’)
For me, the real horror of anything scary is the idea that the monster does not lurk outside your bedroom window or is hiding behind the bushes located in your neighbors yard, but that the creature is in the attic, your dark dank basement or perhaps that distant closet, the one whose door never ever seems to stay shut. For me fear becomes way too real when in a horror movie we are told that a virus has come to town. At first its effects are minimal almost invisible, suggesting but as the virus gains control of the minds of its hosts, it changes behaviors and intentions and eventually your best friend, your next door neighbor, the cop on the block, all turn into the monster.
Be wary America, the creature is living in the White House. He is not on the foreign shores of an aggressor nation. He has no need for an arsenal of nuclear weapons to wipe away our daily existence. Be wary America, this monster has unleashed a virus, a virulent contagion that has found its ways into the bodies of men and women who lack intelligence but are bountiful with bias and bigotry. His powers are fed by a Republican Party too terrified of their own horrid lack of conviction, He is nourished by a self serving variety of billionaires who believe that tomorrow doesn’t matter its all about more, more and more for today! When the phone keeps ringing and ringing when the threats keep cascading and cascading, when it comes down to who will succeed in the end, the aggressor or the intended victim…what will we do? We ALL know just how scary this horror movie has become, do we however, have the courage to define its ending in our favor, OR do we all lack the conviction to change a very visible and ominous future. The stranger HAS called, now what?
