Όταν ένας ξένος ξανακαλεί

Ian West4.0

I would have never expected to this 1993 made for Showtime sequel to 1979’s When a Stranger Calls to effectively creep me out the way it did... but here we are.The opening 27 minutes of babysitter Jill Schoelen being stalked was a legitimately well made and tense orchestration of terror, a fitting follow up to the legendary 1979 intro. Carol Kane returns (and takes zero bullshit, especially from the cops who want to write off Jill Schoelens recent incident as a overreacting woman co-ed) and so does Charles Durning (who has the best line in the movie... “This man is a ventriloquist!”)The crazy ventriloquist stalker utilizing camouflage paint to stalk is creepy, in fact there’s numerously disturbing scenes throughout, including a sit in on his ventriloquist act, all framed with a simple but effectively eerie piano motif repeating throughout. I’m glad I never watched this during the 90’s because it would have creeped me the hell out and I wouldn’t be able to look at a wall or coat rack without thinking there was a chameleon psycho ventriloquist dude secretly waiting to abduct me. Good on you Fred Walton, I never would have expected this to be as startling as it was.

Edith5.0

What begins as a home invasion transcends into a timeless horror story about victims of abuse. Narratively it works similarly to the appeal of Exorcist III, a deeper dive into the psychological that the first entry presented only as surface level scares. Fred Walton has already impressed me with his professionalism towards TV movies creating moody atmospheres that belong in bigger productions. There are a lot of amazing shots to appreciate: the stalker framed in the windowpane reflected in the mirror, extreme wide-shots inducing a sense of the voyeuristic, sitting in dark spaces with only the moonlight to cast a shadow, the shocking "un-reveal" of the stalker. Weaving multiple thriller genres -- switching between procedural and horror -- is the soporific lull into sudden violence. Kind of like an abusive relationship itself... It's fairly obvious what the movie is going for, but it's in the way it frames consternation. How we constantly question whether the victim is telling the truth. The slight misplacement of a journal, an unfamiliar shirt in the closet, were these always there? How the little changes in our lives are aberrations of losing control again. Maybe our stalker is someone we know. The facelessness of someone in an alleyway or hiding in your home is represented as well, no one and everyone. He has a name, but no characterization. Sort of in the feels of Zodiac, the mind games we fall into when we reconcile that someone we know may very well be a monster among us. The constant tension of looking over your shoulder and the fear of it never resolving; injustice as a haunting phantasm. Really, the only way to stop it is for Carol Kane to dropkick the guy in her apartment, I kid. I urge everyone who rated this low to give it another shot and take in the subtlety of all that it is presenting. I think it is really easy to dismiss it as not being "scary enough" or just a "TV movie", but it excels at formulating the now exalted elevated horror without all the pageantry.

Justin LaLiberty4.0

not sure what's more shocking: that this fifteen year later, made-for-tv sequel is a legitimately great and potent examination of trauma or that it features a strip club sequence with a ventriloquist in blackface, holding a faceless dummy