The 80s and 90s were a crazy time. You'd hire a high school or random college student you didn't even know to stay in your house and watch your kids for a night and you''d just give her free reign in your house to eat your food and look through all your stuff, who knows what she could do while you're gone, who cares, tra la la. Like I said, crazy. Some people even hred 12 year olds to watch their kids all night, because lord knows 12 year olds are definitely old and mature enough to take care of a house full of kids. And of course for those of us who grew up in those times, there were horror stories about what could go wrong while you were watching the kids alone at some random house, like, oh, a psycho killer calling to taunt you while you're there, The very idea was terrifying because you're so vulnerable while you're alone at someone's house that you barely know and you're responsible for the safety of some innocent kids that are depending on you. It's a scary position to be in, and movies like this one took fulll advantage of such fears.
This movie is about a college student named Jill who is babysitting for a doctor and his wife who she barely knows when a man starts calling her to taunt her, asking her if she's checked the children. The phone calls start to get under her skin after awhile so she calls the police and they tell her there's not much they can do but they recommend that she try to keep the guy on the phone for at least a minute so they can put a trace on the call and find out where the guy is calling from, so the next time he calls she tries to keep him on the phone and she keeps him on the phone long enough for the police to trace the call, and the police find out that the calls are coming from inside the house, but before the police can get to her something terrible happens and her life is forever changed. The movie then jumps to seven years later when it seems that the man who terrorized jill is at it again and she must defend herself and defeat the psycho once and for all.
The first ten minutes of this movie are the best part by far. The original attack on Jill is a tense and terrifying ordeal, and the guy on the phone is really creepy. When she asks him what he wants and he says "Your blood all over me," it's genuinely terrifying (he says it with such JOY, like having her blood all over him would make him so happy, that it's just insane!) Now the first thing I would have done in that situation is gone and checked on the children, but the mother asked her before they left not to check on the children unless she absolutely had to, because the children were getting over colds and it had taken them a great deal of time to get the kids asleep in the first place and she didn't want them waking up, so I guess it makes sense that she doesn't want to disturb the kids and she genuinely thinks that the calls are some kind of malicious prank untill it's too late.
It's after the first ten minutes that the movie starts to falter. It gets to be ridiculous after awhile with not much happening and the movie drags along and it's hard to keep interested. Then the movie starts to get interesting again for like, the last ten minutes or so and the ending is pretty good. It's the hour or so in between the first ten minutes and the last ten minutes that sags and drags and brings everything down. If this movie were just 20 or 30 minutes long it would be perfect. Regardless, it's worth watching for that first ten minutes and last ten minutes, just don't expect too much and be prepared for a lomng stretch where nothing much happens, and you'll be ok.
No comments:
Post a Comment