Murder by Phone

Canadian horror film starring Richard Chamberlain as a professor out to prove a conspiracy exists in a huge phone company as they cover up a mad killer that uses high-pitch frequencies on the phone to kill people. The movie resembles Coma with its thriller-like atmosphere and its one person against the world protagonist. As thrillers go, the film is pretty enjoyable, although it is definitely short on logic. You really will need to suspend some disbelief here. Michael Anderson directs(quite a ways down from directing Around the World in Eighty Days if you ask me...which you didn't) with some polish and flair, using the materials he is given to their best. John Houseman is somewhat wasted in the film, but his verbal reparte with Chamberlain is quite amusing. Chamberlain is adequate in the lead. The special effects are...well, not too impressive. Some of the death scenes are over-acted and over-directed, and unintentionally amusing.

Around this period slashers seemed to be in-craze, but coming out where some fairly oddball horror mysteries and the 1982 feature "Bells" just happened to be one of those gritty change of pace experiments. Also known as "Murder by Phone" under a re-edited version. The curiosity is waiting around for the killer's method of weapon. Ingenious, but laughable. Electrocution by phone. And boy do the victims get some air! While it might have that body count formula, instead of something rather primitive, it laced the plot with industrial conspiracies and scientific jargon as an environmentalist professor goes about investigating the deaths, despite no one really believing him when he thinks it's a phone killing people. It did come off being low-key and clever in spots (a cynical script), but this didn't stop it from being rather stilted (romance sub-plot) and at times silly. The problem lied in between the murders, as it wasn't as interesting or captivating like it should have been. Therefore the idea isn't really realised and uneven in its suspenseful build-ups. It was something you might read from a Michael Crichton novel, especially with his interest in technology getting out of control. Richard Chamberlain putting his game face on was sturdy in the lead role and was good support by a classy John Houseman. Sara Botsford feels secondary, but the cast also bestows Alan Scarfe, Barry Morse and a small part for Lenore Zann. Director Michael Anderson's durable handling is slow-grinding, letting the story unfold and atmosphere bubble with sweeping camera-work and John Barry's ominously edgy music score. Sterile, but resourcefully unique 80s horror mystery.

"If man is going to control his future. His got to learn to control his machinery."

Much more of a gap between the invention of the telephone and this movie, and the invention of the television and the movie Murder By Television, for some reason.....

I saw the cut version of this, which was still rated R surprisingly, despite there being no nudity, just a couple of not-too-bad cuss words, and some deaths that weren't too terribly horrific. This could hardly get anything worse than a PG-13 rating today. I'd be curious what was cut from the movie.

Anyway, a young woman answers a phone ringing in a subway station. Strange sounds come from the phone, and she begins having a seizure of sorts, blood drips from her eyes, and then she is forcefully blown away from the phone, while the receiver ignites in flames.

The young woman was a former student of Richard Chamberlain's character, an

environmental science professor, I think. Her father asks him to investigate her death, which he was told was a heart attack. Chamberlain learns about the phone from a bag lady, and gets some help from a woman painting a mural at the phone company's headquarters. Meanwhile, other people keep dying the same way.

One of the most amusing moments for me was when John Houseman's character drawled "I've earned it." Houseman had done some famous commercials for Smith-Barney saying "They earned money the old-fashioned way: they earned it" - with that same pronunciation. I don't know which came first, the commercials or this movie (I'd guess the former).

Richard Chamberlin plays a college professor who is trying to find out who is the psychopath (more like a postal ex-phone company worker) who is killing victim with a Hi-frequency sound through the phone. It kind of runs like a TV film, if you cut out the Phone/blood violence. John Houseman also star in this Canadian film that was released a year earlier in Canada as BELLS, and released in U.S. as MURDER BY PHONE. The American print is edited to 78 minutes as the Canadian print runs 95 minutes. Roger Corman probably edited it to save money on the print stock when he picked it up for U.S. release. Canadian print is recommended. Originally sold overseas under the title THE CALLING.

Alternatively known as Bells, here's an entertaining chiller with two gooder actors for a film that's still a good solid drama/thriller. Certainly something different here, we have a disgruntled nut who used to work for the phone company, taking people out at random, some he personally knows, by upping the voltage so high, their body melts, their ears explode, and are sent flying backwards whether on subways, or from high rise buildings. Richard Chamberlain, of all people, is a professor, who investigates the killings, when one of his best students, is a victim (the first one on the subway). While bedding architect (Sara Botsford- Rats) he teams up with a cop who he first bangs heads with, on the account of his no caring attitude, they try to flush out the killer, who's doing his business from a small electricity house, which is also his abode. John Houseman, an old lecturer and close friend of Chamberlain, has something to hide here, too, which I thought was a good shock point (pardon the expression). I did like the cop in this film, a Frederick Forest type guy, I found a hoot, if the whole film. The death scenes are classics, and we do question if we could really kill someone by upping the amps so high. How they set the killer up, is classic, as is the last call Richard Chamberlain takes, that he shouldn't of. On the whole, Bells is fun viewing for the horror/thriller viewer, though I don't think it will turn you off answering your next call.