[Demdike@Cult Labs]

When a Stranger Calls (1979)

Following twenty minutes of claustrophobic tension as a babysitter alone in a dark house is terrorized by crank calls from a maniac lurking in a room upstairs the film becomes interminably dull as the madman escapes years later only to terrorize the same woman again. Except this only happens in the final reel.

The rest of the film stalls terribly and is only watchable thanks to the reliable Charles Durning and Tony Beckley as the 'stranger'.

I actually preferred the 2006 remake to this as it keeps the action confined to the house and basically drags the original's opening act out into an 80 min movie which is flawed but more thrilling than this.

If anyone really wants to see Beckley go proper psycho in a terrific slasher, Robert Hartford-Davis' 1971 film The Fiend is the one to see.