Camilla Belle (in some scenes looking eerily like an uglier Anne Hathaway) is a babysitter at the absolutely stunning home of a wealthy doctor and his wife, who must contend with a bunch of bizarro prank calls while her charges are upstairs, presumably zonked out by elephant tranquillisers. The calls get creepier (have you checked the kids yet? An ominous voice asks), and Belle becomes more and more unnerved, especially when it seems the loon might be within very close proximity.
Admirable but futile 2006 Simon West (the genuinely entertaining action pic “Con Air”) attempt at a no-frills, straight-up suspense slasher, ala “Halloween”, “Black Christmas”…or that other movie called “When a Stranger Calls”. And that’s the main problem here, it’s a remake, and a remake of a film that ripped of “Black Christmas” in the first place. Needless to say, it never really gets out of first gear.
West does know how to shoot a slick and atmospheric picture, though, and the cinematography by Peter Menzies Jr. is really outstanding, as is the music score by James Michael Dooley. But with an unoriginal plot, barely there characters (it’s all well and good to give us a long prelude to the horror, but when your characters are dull as hell…), serviceable performances at best, and a total lack of sex, nudity or gore…the film has no hope. That last ingredient, the exploitation factor, is sorely needed in such a streamlined story. No-frills, stream-lined horror might be an interesting approach (it worked in 1978 with “Halloween”), but it doesn’t work here.
It is, however, by virtue of craftsmanship, better than the majority of second-tier slasher pics of the 70s and 80s. Screenplay by Jake Wade Wall, is essentially a reworking of the first twenty minutes of the 1979 original.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Serviceable, attractive, but unoriginal slasher film remakes a film that wasn’t original in the first place. Only if you’re starved of entertainment…
