Babysitter Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) starts receiving prank calls from a scary man who keeps asking her to check on the children. "It's coming from inside the house." Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley) had already killed the kids. Police detective John Clifford (Charles Durning) has the case. It's seven years later and Duncan has escaped. He starts fixating on Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst).
The opening twenty minutes is amazing. I think everyone can see the copying from Scream. I wonder if this is where the call-coming-from-inside-the-house trope comes from. Carol Kane is part of the appeal but it's more than that. It's simple and stripped down. It's brutal in its quiet terror. Then the movie takes an one hour break. It loses all momentum until we reunite with Carol Kane. Then the quiet terror resurfaces. There are basically two movies in one. The movie that bookends the story is a very compelling horror but the middle part is a lot of nothing with moments of weird creepiness.
The opening twenty minutes is amazing. I think everyone can see the copying from Scream. I wonder if this is where the call-coming-from-inside-the-house trope comes from. Carol Kane is part of the appeal but it's more than that. It's simple and stripped down. It's brutal in its quiet terror. Then the movie takes an one hour break. It loses all momentum until we reunite with Carol Kane. Then the quiet terror resurfaces. There are basically two movies in one. The movie that bookends the story is a very compelling horror but the middle part is a lot of nothing with moments of weird creepiness.