In a remote hilltop house, high school student Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle) settles in for a routine night of babysitting. With the children sound asleep and a beautiful home to explore, she locks the door and sets the alarm. But when a series of eerie phone calls from a stranger insist that she "check the children," Jill begins to panic. Fear escalates to terror when she has the calls traced and learns that they are coming from inside the house. Jill must summon all of her inner strength if she is going to fight back and make it out of the house alive.

I think somewhere in Hollywood, in a dark deep basement with little light and air there is a group of studio executives green lighting films because they hate us as a movie going public. Maybe they’re failed actors who once aspired of being famous or maybe they are little goblins who just delight in the torture of movies audiences but its clear they are out to get us. I can’t find any other plausible reason other than them snorting mountains of crack cocaine on why somewhere during the filming of this movie or maybe in post-production they didn’t push their pile of crack away and say “damn this movie sucks.” Why does this movie suck you ask because it was like it was written for a group of fourteen year old girls who have never seen a horror or suspense movie in their life or for that matter the trailer. The studio executives hate you so much they don’t even bother to hide anything from you in the trailer, they let you know the villain is going to get into the house which you probably could have guessed unless you had been practicing juggling bricks before the movie began. So we know the villain is going to end up in the house yet we must endure an hour of so-called suspense where the movie tries to thrill us with the fact that just maybe their just might be a chance the villain could get into the house. Does that sound like someone had been smoking crack cocaine or juggling bricks for that matter when they filmed this movie or marketed it for that matter, if it doesn’t you need to push that mountain of crack away and just say no.

I don’t think I have ever seen a movie break every single horror and movie cliché before but I think When a Stranger Calls does. Hide and Seek came close but wow I almost think they had to be trying to make a movie this bad and this clichéd. First off the lead character two minutes after arriving to the house and before anything has happened or even the first call is made she is jumpier than if you had dropped a bag of scorpions down her dress. There is no reason for her to be this insanely nervous, if the cat looked at her wrong she was liable to grab a fire poker and try and kill it. If you didn’t feel insulted by this then you weren’t paying attention the first girl getting killed was for the audiences benefit not for the lead character to be afraid of her own shadow. And when will makers of movies like this stop making every scary moment so darned transparent, keying the music up right before you try and make me jump is like slapping me in the face then telling me I should like it. Stop now, its gotten ridiculous, its not scary, its not terrifying and you should be ashamed of yourself, oh and by the way brand new cars don’t take 14 tries to start it just doesn’t happen ever.

Lucky for us Camilla Belle is nineteen years old because she must have slept with someone to get this part that or it has gotten way to easy to get movie parts in Hollywood movies now days. I have seen goldfish with as much acting talent as Camilla, oooh look I am supposed to be scared because the cat keeps looking at me cross-eyed. Now as bad Camilla was and she was bad, I don’t think it was entirely her fault, so I am going to blame the director Simon West who must have been sharing in the mountain of crack cocaine. I mean he has the fine tough of a director as if I were to try and put a thumbtack in the wall with a sledge hammer. I have never seen more heavy handed, obvious directing and then trying to pass it off as suspense. Someone needs to be fired and if it seems I am being a little vicious today, that’s because I am tired of Hollywood complaining about slumping box office numbers then taking piles of horse manure like this and dumping it on audiences. Show some creativity, show some skill at making movies, I was offended by how bad this movie was and you should be too.

Grade: F