The original When A Stranger Calls became known as one of the scariest movies of all time simply for it's brilliant opening 20 minutes. People forget that the rest of the film (besides an almost equally effective closing 20 minutes) is sort of a drag. A remake wasn't the worst idea in the world, especially since the original film's sequel, When A Stranger Calls Back, already improved upon the original.
This remake gets a lot of things right. The location/set is stunning and not a bad place to be trapped for 90 minutes. There are all sorts of interesting hallways and staircases to get one's imagination going. The music is appropriately eerie and the sound mix does a great job of adding tension. The titular stranger is kept in the shadows for most of the film and we have no idea who he is or what his motivations are.
Where the film fails is the casting of its lead. Camilla Belle is a beautiful girl, but she's dramatically limited and not terribly charming. She's certainly not interesting enough to watch by herself for 90 minutes. When the set is more interesting than your leading lady, you know you have issues. This is a shame, too, because the screenplay itself isn't terrible. It extends the original's opening sequence to the breaking point at times and has to keep everything a little bit too safe so that it can keep its PG-13 rating (for example, the children Jill is watching are never in any real jeopardy, which is kind of a downer since the urban legend it's based off of always has them falling victim to the killer), but it's a surprisingly effective little chiller.
This remake gets a lot of things right. The location/set is stunning and not a bad place to be trapped for 90 minutes. There are all sorts of interesting hallways and staircases to get one's imagination going. The music is appropriately eerie and the sound mix does a great job of adding tension. The titular stranger is kept in the shadows for most of the film and we have no idea who he is or what his motivations are.
Where the film fails is the casting of its lead. Camilla Belle is a beautiful girl, but she's dramatically limited and not terribly charming. She's certainly not interesting enough to watch by herself for 90 minutes. When the set is more interesting than your leading lady, you know you have issues. This is a shame, too, because the screenplay itself isn't terrible. It extends the original's opening sequence to the breaking point at times and has to keep everything a little bit too safe so that it can keep its PG-13 rating (for example, the children Jill is watching are never in any real jeopardy, which is kind of a downer since the urban legend it's based off of always has them falling victim to the killer), but it's a surprisingly effective little chiller.