Murder by Phone

Year: 1981

Director: Michael Anderson

Written by: Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack, John Kent Harrison

Threat: Psychopath

Weapon of Choice: Phone

Based upon: Original

IMDb page: IMDb link

     

Other movies in this series:
None

The tyranist's thoughts
It is unusual that I would even bother to pick up a movie with a title this terrible, find out it's Canadian, and still rent it. I'm so glad I did. In spite of everything that was going against it when I popped the tape in, I enjoyed the hour and a half I spent following Richard Chamberlain around an unnamed city looking for a man who murders by phone.
And that's basically the story. An innocent young lady picks up a phone in a subway station and it kills her. Richard Chamberlain comes into town for an environmental conference and starts to investigate the girl's death at the behest of her father who is a friend of his. Soon more people die. Same way. Consipracy? High level cover ups? Who is at the bottom of this and why is somebody trying to hide them?
The story really boils down to an environmental, high-level conspiracy theory movie, but the deaths are horrible (in both senses of the word) and the tension is actually high enough most of the time to make this horror. The killer is especially psychopathic in his own way.
Richard Chamberlain does an adequate job. John Houseman is . . . well, John Houseman. Fantastic as always. The production is pretty mid-level and the anonymous city thing bothered me, but really in the end, it is very well put together. The core idea is even a little frightening. I suspect that this could be remade into something noteworthy. At least, the title could be changed.
Definitely see this one if you can find it. Judging by it's age and source, I was lucky to stumble onto a copy myself.

Total Skulls: 9

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title skull
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex skull
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat skull
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene skull
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare skull
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness skull
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood hits camera
Poor death effect skull
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives skull
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?