The Call Came from Inside the House: Supernatural Noise and Domestic Incivility

In the opening scene of the psychological horror film When a Stranger Calls (Fred Walton, 1979), a babysitter—Jill Johnson (Carol Kane)—is terrorized by an anonymous male who calls asking her to check on the children in her care. His progressively creepier requests unknowingly fly in the face of their mother’s warning that the sleeping children—recently recovered from illness—must remain undisturbed. Once the parents leave, the large, stylishly appointed, and now noticeably silent house settles gloomily around the sitter. Sensibly enough, she resorts to the consolations of the telephone, chatting amiably at first, and then defen-sively, with an unnamed friend and potential rival for the affections of Bobby. Grudgingly, her friend concedes Jill’s prior claim to the boy and agrees to give him her number at the house. After a brief interval, the phone rings and someone—clearly not Bobby—asks: “Have you checked on the children?”