Short Takes: ‘Murder by Phone’ (1982) ★★ ½

The days before caller I.D. were
indeed terrifying.

While there have been plenty of thrillers and horror movies built around scary phone calls (Sorry, Wrong Number; When a Stranger Calls; Scream) and a few where the phone is a conduit to an evil force (976-Evil and The Ring-with-a-wireless-plan One Missed Call), to my knowledge the Canadian-made Murder by Phone (a.k.a. Bells) is the only movie to feature, well, murders by phone. And there may be a reason why there have been no other killer phone movies afterwards: Phones just aren’t all that scary, especially when potential victims can simply hang up.

Despite a silly concept, director and co-writer Michael Anderson (Around the World in 80 Days, Logan’s Run, Orca) managed to turn out an engaging-in-spite-of-itself thriller. Helping sell the story is the late Richard Chamberlain at peak fuckability (it’s bearded Richard Chamberlain, which is the best Richard Chamberlain), who stars as a college science teacher/environmental activist Nat Bridger. While attending a conference in Toronto Bridger investigates the death of one of his former students at the request of her father. The former student’s death was ruled a heart attack, but Bridger and the girl’s father aren’t buying it since she was only 19. We know from the movie’s opening scene that what killed her was her answering a ringing pay phone [link for younger readers] that then emitted a high-pitched whine that, apparently, immobilized her while she bled from her nose and eyes before shooting a blast of electricity directly into her ear, sending her flying across a subway platform and onto a nearby escalator.

Several more people die this way, with some of the kills being unintentionally hilarious, like when an executive is sent flying through an upper floor window of an office high rise, still seated in his desk chair. Bridger pieces together that the calls are being perpetrated by a person who has somehow devised a way to send high-voltage blasts through the telephone lines (just go with it), but phone company execs stonewall him when he goes to them with his concerns, turning Murder by Phone into an awkward conspiracy thriller. Bridger’s trip to the phone company isn’t for naught, however. While there he meets R.T. (Sarah Botsford), an artist creating a mural in the lobby of the phone company’s headquarters, who assists him in his investigation as well as becoming his love interest.

I first learned about this movie when the Glorious Trash blog reviewed Phone Call, Jon Messmann’s novelization of this movie’s script published a full year before the movie was filmed in 1980, and three years before its release in the U.S. Glorious Trash described the book as “sluggish” and “more deadening than thrilling,” before launching into a tirade about Bridger being written as a hardcore environmentalist <sigh>. Even dismissing the right-wing complaints, the book sounds like a chore to read. The movie, though, is well-paced and entertaining. Chamberlain and Botsford, besides being easy on the eyes, keep things grounded by playing it straight, while supporting actors John Houseman, as Bridger’s pompous mentor, and Gary Reineke, as a skeptical police lieutenant, give more outsized performances befitting a B-movie. Anderson’s stylish direction also helps, even wringing (or is that ringing?) some genuine tension from the goofy premise.

Though I’d be among the first to buy this movie if Vinegar Syndrome ever got ahold of it for a Blu-ray release (hint, hint), I’d also be the first to admit that it doesn’t fully work. The movie’s story would’ve been easier to buy had there been a supernatural/paranormal cause behind killer phones. No matter how much science-y sounding dialog the movie throws at us, it just can’t convince us someone could kill via landline. Even more far-fetched: Bridger, who has a Ph.D., allowing people to address him Mister Bridger without once correcting them. I call bullshit.

Bizarre (and Kinda' Hot) Love Triangle

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Short Takes: ‘In the Eye of the Hurricane’ (1971) ★★★

Ruth (Analía Gadé), a wealthy, well-put-together blonde with a fondness for beige fashions and Kent cigarettes, leaves her husband Michel (Tony Kendall) for Paul (Jean Sorel). It appears to be an amicable separation. Michel tries to persuade Ruth to stay—or at least stay long enough for a farewell fuck—but then politely steps aside when Paul arrives to take Ruth away to “the villa.” The lovers’ first few days at the seaside mansion are blissful, though Ruth (and the audience) doesn’t know what to make of the sudden appearance of Paul’s gigolo friend Roland (Maurizio Bonuglia), but she quickly warms up to him always hanging around the movie’s periphery. Less so Danielle (Rosanna Yanni), the sexually ambiguous redhead who’s rented the house next door.

But there are more unwelcome developments threatening Ruth’s happiness than a layabout stud with a pencil ’stache or a shapely switch-hitter, such as narrowly avoiding a deadly crash when her brakes give out while speeding along a narrow highway, and almost asphyxiating when her scuba tank runs out of air during a diving expedition. Both incidents are dismissed as coincidental malfunctions, but Ruth is sure that someone is trying to kill...Paul. It’s only later that she realizes she’s the one who’s In the Eye of the Hurricane (a.k.a. El ojo del huracán).

Even the poster art for In the Eye of the Hurricane
and Paranoia complement each other.

This Spanish-Italian co-production had been on my watchlist for a while, and so it was a pleasant surprise when it popped up on Tubi, under the title The Fox with the Velvet Tail. It’s more a Eurotrash thriller than giallo, which is fine by me. If you liked Umberto Lenzi’s 1969 thriller Paranoia (a.k.a. Orgasmo)—and I count it among my favorites—then you should enjoy In the Eye of the Hurricane. In fact, Paranoia and Hurricane would make a great double feature, as both movies share a lot of similarities: beautiful rich women living in secluded villas, lovers with suspect motives, semi-explicit sex scenes, and bratty bisexual babes.

But as much as Paranoia and Hurricane complement each other, they are not equal. Paranoia is better, but Hurricane is classier. Not only does Hurricane director José María Forqué present his leading lady in a more glamorous light, he also injects his movie with a lot of visual style, such as a dizzying make-out scene between Sorel, hanging upside down from a tree branch, and a topless Gadé (too bad about the shitty day-for-night scenes). The version of Hurricane streaming on Tubi is English dubbed, which makes it difficult to accurately judge the acting, though fortunately none of the actors on screen have their performances sabotaged by awful voice actors. Forqué’s script, co-written with Rafael Azcona and Mario di Nardo, is deceptively simple—too simple, I initially thought, until the final denouement that surprised me with its cleverness. The point of Roland’s presence is never really explained, though the final seconds before the end credits spark plenty of speculation. At the risk of a minor spoiler, I’ll just say Ruth should have fun with him (Roland is cute, in a smarmy sort of way) but maybe keep a gun handy. Roland’s up to something.

Michel’s (Tony Kendall) inability to properly tie a tie may not be what
drove Ruth (Analia Gadé) to leave him, but I’m sure it was a factor.