(**1/2 out of *****)
Possible Spoilers
This follow-up (of sorts) to Brownrigg's earlier "Don't Look in the Basement" probably should have been called "Don't Answer the Phone," because that's where most of the tension lies. Otherwise, you get more of the same: grainy camera work and dark lighting with lots of shadows, an old spooky house with a long staircase, and a lot of closeups of characters who are either a little on the eccentric side or totally bonkers. This time, a woman (Susan Bracken) goes back to her childhood home (where she witnessed her mother's murder) to care for her sick grandmother. She's not even there a full day before she starts receiving threatening phone calls from a psycho hiding inside the house and people start getting stabbed and bludgeoned when they should most expect it (ideas lifted from the much-superior "Black Christmas," which came out the previous year). Like Brownrigg's "Don't ... Basement," this one is flawed, and it moves kind of slow, but there's something compellingly gothic and atmospherically creepy about the whole thing (particularly as it spirals further into insanity toward the climax) that keeps it from being a total bomb. I did, however, get real sick of seeing that guy's goofy face and hearing his exaggerated, whispering voice on the telephone every five minutes. Gene Ross plays another questionable judge (like he did in "Don't ... Basement"), and some other people from that movie pop up in this one as well (including Annabelle Weenick in a smaller role and Rhea MacAdams, who, as the dying grandmother, has no dialogue and gets to lie in bed for just a couple of scenes and look deathly ill).
HIGHLIGHT: Even though I was expecting it, it was still kinda creepy when that mannequin turned out to be the museum director in drag. Holy cross-dressing psychopaths, Batman!
Possible Spoilers
This follow-up (of sorts) to Brownrigg's earlier "Don't Look in the Basement" probably should have been called "Don't Answer the Phone," because that's where most of the tension lies. Otherwise, you get more of the same: grainy camera work and dark lighting with lots of shadows, an old spooky house with a long staircase, and a lot of closeups of characters who are either a little on the eccentric side or totally bonkers. This time, a woman (Susan Bracken) goes back to her childhood home (where she witnessed her mother's murder) to care for her sick grandmother. She's not even there a full day before she starts receiving threatening phone calls from a psycho hiding inside the house and people start getting stabbed and bludgeoned when they should most expect it (ideas lifted from the much-superior "Black Christmas," which came out the previous year). Like Brownrigg's "Don't ... Basement," this one is flawed, and it moves kind of slow, but there's something compellingly gothic and atmospherically creepy about the whole thing (particularly as it spirals further into insanity toward the climax) that keeps it from being a total bomb. I did, however, get real sick of seeing that guy's goofy face and hearing his exaggerated, whispering voice on the telephone every five minutes. Gene Ross plays another questionable judge (like he did in "Don't ... Basement"), and some other people from that movie pop up in this one as well (including Annabelle Weenick in a smaller role and Rhea MacAdams, who, as the dying grandmother, has no dialogue and gets to lie in bed for just a couple of scenes and look deathly ill).
HIGHLIGHT: Even though I was expecting it, it was still kinda creepy when that mannequin turned out to be the museum director in drag. Holy cross-dressing psychopaths, Batman!