lindquistuk
In amongst all the gremlin knock-offs/killer toy crap Charles Band has churned out over the last 20 years, a few surprises have sneaked through - usually to an indifferent audience. No wonder Band sticks to what he knows.....'The Caller' can be counted amongst Band's more valient efforts ('Dark Angel', 'Trancers', 'Shrunken Heads', 'Re-animator', 'Freeway 2', 'From Beyond', 'Ghost Town', 'Prison', 'Crawlspace') - a film that makes an honest effort to transcend the usual DTV crap that dominates the modern movie market. Like the aforementioned efforts, it all comes down to an above average script. And, unusually for a genre film, the two leads seem to be taking all this hokum seriously, which convinces the audience to do the same. MGM (who have owned Empire Pictures' back catalogue for the past 10 years) would be doing genre fans a service were they to re-release true originals like this, rather than garbage like Tim Kincaid's 'Breeders'...
WritnGuy-2
I debated on getting this one for a while, but finally, just gave in and got it. And I thought it was a really cool movie, though the ending was sort of tough to swallow.Madolyn Smith plays a young woman staying at a cabin in the woods, and one night, a man comes to her door asking to use the phone. Yet, you know he has been watching her for quite some time, so the scenes between them are tense from then on.Each day after that, she sees him, and they have these very interesting confrontations. Their interaction--which I am giving nothing away about--is gripping, and sometimes, you wonder which one is really crazy.When the climax of the movie came, the movie got extremely tense, but then it took this weird twist that, though it was a scary idea, came across sort of dumb. Or at least at first. Once it fleshes out a little more, you will either be sort of lost on what kind of movie this is supposed to be, or you will be quite interested. By the end, I thought the idea was very inventive, though not very fleshed out. But when first revealed, I was ready to forget the 90% of truly scary film. I say, see this movie. It will keep you guessing on what's going on until the end, and I guarantee you'll never suspect it. Overall, a good movie.
stills-6
Strange, gripping drama for the first 90% of the movie. McDowell plays his character with a weird calm intensity that keeps your eyes glued to him. Madolyn Smith-Osborne, a terrific actress here and someone who I never heard of, plays a woman who looks like she's about to come unhinged at any moment.Part of the problem with this very dialogue-intense movie is that it builds up to such a dramatic climax that it's impossible to keep it going through any explanation of what's really going on. And the explanation really cheapens things.What's really great about this movie is the interplay between the two (and only two) characters. In some parts it's brilliant. I wish I had stopped watching some time before Smith-Osborne got all her points, however.
Zane-14
The opening scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie - A woman (Smith-Osborne) is shopping in a deserted shopping centre and then drives her car down an equally deserted main road to her house. No explanation is given for the absence of people, nor for that matter the mysterious man (McDowell) who visits her and begins explaining his presence at the house. The woman points out inconsistencies in his story and as she does so he awards her with a point (it is mentioned that she needs ten points but we are not told the reason). We come to realise that the woman is being held hostage at the house by the man and tension builds as the woman nears ten points and the climax. The woman finally reaches ten points and well... The ending is a bit of a let down (and perhaps a touch frustrating for some) but the film is well worth watching, if only for the performances by McDowell and Smith-Osborne.
