Genre:
Crime
Release Date: 09/22/1998
SubTitles: English/Espanol/French
Dubbed: English
Sound: 5.1/2
Run Time: 94 min
Distributor/Studio: Good Times Video
Another psychopath haunts another baby sitter in this made-for-TV sequel to the 1979 feature
When a Stranger Calls. When prim schoolgirl
Julia (
Jill Schoelen) accepts a last-minute baby-sitting assignment from a doctor and his wife (
Kevin McNulty and
Cheryl Wilson), she follows all the rules: She studies diligently, checks often on the kids, and refuses to open the door for strangers -- even when a stranded motorist asks to come in and call his auto club.
Julia offers to call for him, but the phone is dead, and rather than alert a strange man that she's without a link to the outside world, she lies and says they're on their way. The man returns to the door repeatedly, angrily wondering why help hasn't arrived; as he continues to badger
Julia, she notices things aren't right in the house. Slips of paper disappear, doors mysteriously unlock themselves, the children vanish, and
Julia barely escapes with her life. Five years later,
Julia is an introverted college student with some heavy-duty locks on her door. Nevertheless, she starts getting that familiar feeling that something isn't right. Enter
Jill Johnson (
Carol Kane), survivor of a similar baby-sitting atrocity many years earlier. Now a guidance counselor at
Julia's university, she offers to help the girl track down her stalker. With the help of an old friend, private eye
John Clifford (
Charles Durning),
Jill picks up the trail of a disturbed ventriloquist (
Gene Lythgow). But when
Julia ends up with a bullet in her head in an apparent suicide attempt, even
John thinks
Jill's investigation is a wild goose chase. Reuniting stars
Carol Kane and
Charles Durning with writer/director
Fred Walton,
When a Stranger Calls Back features another
horror veteran in its cast.
Jill Schoelen previously starred in 1990's
Popcorn.
~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide