Scream Scene

By J.S.

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS Directed by Fred Walton Screenplay by Steve Feke and Fred Walton

Some of the publicity material set out to puff this wretchedly inept creaking-door flick compares it to the work of Hitchcock. After the show is over, the viewer may wonder, "Which Hitchcock was that?" Instead of building toward a climax, Stranger strings together three awkward, vaguely related segments. The first concerns a baby sitter (Carol Kane) who is terrorized by phone calls from a homicidal maniac (Tony Beckley). The second, set seven years later, has the maniac loose again, menacing a woman (Colleen Dewhurst) in a bar. The third has him on the trail of the baby sitter, who is now a wife and mother, while a detective (Charles Durning) stalks him.

None of this works. Kane talks through her nose, and Beckley overacts. Dewhurst is physically far more formidable than her assailant and so does not seem menaced. Durning, a mild fat man who was perfectly cast as the comic villain in The Muppet Movie, jiggles too much when he runs to be credible as an implacable avenger. Moss grew years ago on Director Fred Walton's spooky trips.

Yes, the ominous noise in the kitchen turns out to be the ice maker; and yes, the ghastly face visible when a door is jerked open belongs to a cop, not the murderer. The big scream scene, in which Kane turns for help to a blanket-covered figure of her sleeping husband, is some of the funniest footage since the Marx brothers broke up, and maybe it should have been planned that way. --J.S.

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