DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE!
Alternate Title:
The Hollywood Strangler
German Titles:
Todesschrei per Telefon / Todesschrei am Telefon / Das Telefon - Bei Anruf Horror
USA, 1980
Director: Robert Hammer
4,5/10
Alternate Title:
The Hollywood Strangler
German Titles:
Todesschrei per Telefon / Todesschrei am Telefon / Das Telefon - Bei Anruf Horror
USA, 1980
Director: Robert Hammer
4,5/10
Gee, what a mess of a movie. "Don't Answer The Phone!" is an incredibly weird post-"When A Stranger Calls"-slasher that just can't decide what it wants to be: psycho-killer horror? goofy cop comedy? sleazy sexploitation? Nevermind, everyone involved in this cheesefest seemed to be high on crack whilst shooting... and I guess that's alright.
The killer is a disturbed loner in the vein of "Maniac" or "Don't Go In The House", though it's impossible to take him serious because of Nicholas Worth's unintentionally hilarious performance. The rest of the cast isn't much better: untalented actors play stupid characters who constantly spit out crappy dialogue lines.
Apart from a horribly messy script, terrible pacing and lack of gore, there's at least lots of gorgeous girls, lots of even more gorgeous nudity, a bunch of decent kills and a few extremely funny scenes (police at the massage salon, the 'Drugs are more important than you!' scene, silly fistfights...).
Final verdict: weak but watchable drive-in exploitation.
Posts
Oh yeah! I definitely checked this one out - liked it a bit more than you did - I thought Worth had more...er, worth...as the killer... but you made good points and this is a terrific review. Here's a link to mine:
ReplyDeletehttp://craiglgooh.blogspot.com/2011/08/if-you-want-to-live-better-let-machine.html
Weird. Weird is all I can say. :/ On a side note, I made a list of how to survive a Horror Movie and one of the rules was not to answer the phone. This movie proved my point. :)
ReplyDeleteThanx Craig! Just checked your review out.
ReplyDelete@Jen:
What's funny about it - the title is completely misleading. The killer makes a few phone calls but none of them are really important for the whole storyline.
A more appropriate title would be "Answer the Phone if you want - It doesn't matter" :)
I, I don't know what to say. I saw this, but I've felt...abysmal after finishing it. Guess it wasn't my taste...8(
ReplyDeletereally? abysmal?? LOL Yep, I guess this was definitely NOT your taste. I felt quite entertained :)
ReplyDeleteIs this the film with the trailer that says "Don't Answer The Phone because He Knows You're Alone!" Potentially confusing it with He Knows You're Alone? Or was that the trailer for He Knows You're Alone? :0
ReplyDeletewatched both trailers.
ReplyDeleteThe Phone trailer says "If you are alone... Don't answer the phone."
The He Knows trailer says "On the night before the wedding... He knows you're alone."
Yeah, I watched them again too - Faulty memory! Interesting how similar the trailers are though!
ReplyDeleteyeah you're right, they're both pretty similar.
ReplyDelete