The Caller

Strange, gripping drama for the first 90% of the movie. McDowell plays his character with a weird calm intensity that keeps your eyes glued to him. Madolyn Smith-Osborne, a terrific actress here and someone who I never heard of, plays a woman who looks like she's about to come unhinged at any moment.

Part of the problem with this very dialogue-intense movie is that it builds up to such a dramatic climax that it's impossible to keep it going through any explanation of what's really going on. And the explanation really cheapens things.

What's really great about this movie is the interplay between the two (and only two) characters. In some parts it's brilliant. I wish I had stopped watching some time before Smith-Osborne got all her points, however.

These weird, gapless phone calls; this plastic artificiality; the completely unnatural emotional reactions: are these evidence that what we're witnessing is mental illness, something supernatural, or "just 80s movie things"? Only at this moment in history could that full range of possibilities exist.

And that gamut is what's going to keep you gripped in the oddest possible way. You can never simply guess or second-guess what's going on, because you always know that in 80s cinema this could be a representation of something more mundane. From that possibility, many more can spring. Your mind becomes a field of spinning plates: perhaps it's a weird mating dance between people who've lost their spark, someone/everyone is a psychopath, someone/everyone has memory loss, the list goes on.

You are absolutely never going to guess the twist, and how you react to that revelation will largely rest on how much you enjoyed the ridiculous build-up. If you allowed the campness to wash over you, the ending will be an absurd delight but if it was trying your patience then the ending is going to make you rage.

There's something particularly adorable about the way this film clearly thinks it's playing a classy two-hander worthy of the stage. I mean, it's not. It's absolutely not. Awww, but bless its heart.

I debated on getting this one for a while, but finally, just gave in and got it. And I thought it was a really cool movie, though the ending was sort of tough to swallow.

Madolyn Smith plays a young woman staying at a cabin in the woods, and one night, a man comes to her door asking to use the phone. Yet, you know he has been watching her for quite some time, so the scenes between them are tense from then on.

Each day after that, she sees him, and they have these very interesting confrontations. Their interaction--which I am giving nothing away about--is gripping, and sometimes, you wonder which one is really crazy.

When the climax of the movie came, the movie got extremely tense, but then it took this weird twist that, though it was a scary idea, came across sort of dumb. Or at least at first. Once it fleshes out a little more, you will either be sort of lost on what kind of movie this is supposed to be, or you will be quite interested. By the end, I thought the idea was very inventive, though not very fleshed out. But when first revealed, I was ready to forget the 90% of truly scary film. I say, see this movie. It will keep you guessing on what's going on until the end, and I guarantee you'll never suspect it. Overall, a good movie.

(1987) The Caller PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER/ SCIENCE-FICTION

It opens with the Madolyn Smith character leaving with some money to the gas station attendant after filling the range rover up with gas. And when she leaves the gas station, someone's hand is seen grabbing money after she has left. And by the time she comes home, which happens to be a cottage in the middle of the nowhere, someone appears to be watching her. Bringing packages in, one of the odd packages she brings inside is a hat box that has something dripping at the bottom. She first makes a call to her daughter and as soon as someone knocks on her door, it happens to be the character played by Malcolm McDowell, telling her that he has a flat and wanting to use her telephone. At first, she is reluctant since she says she is expecting somebody to show up for dinner as it was in the middle of the night. And it was at this point the mind games begins when both the Madolyn Smith and the Malcolm McDowell characters begin questioning one another's motives and making suggestions the person may have or might have done, ending with a twist the reason the movie is called "the Caller", and it is not what one would think.

A two person performance of Madolyn Smith and Malcolm McDowell as one is attempting to figure out the other from one day after the next. The ending rivals to anything from the "Twilight Zone" which requires some thought.

Fascinating (and undiscovered) mystery/suspense/ thriller concerns a strange woman and her (even stranger?) guest in an isolated cabin in the woods. That's the entire cast, and basically there is only one set. A chilling movie where nothing is what it seems. You spend the entire film trying to discern who the "villain" is. This sort of thing must have impeccable acting to succeed, and does. McDowell is exquisite, the perfect choice.

Subsequent viewings are also rewarding, but you watch the movie from a complete different perspective. 2 1/2 of 4 stars on a tough scale.