Depictions of Trauma in ‘When a Stranger Calls Back’
The slasher film is rarely considered for its progressive or feminist views toward women. Reams of paper have been used detailing the slasher’s frequent and negative depiction of the female form, its grim attitude toward teenage sexuality, and the point of view through which it intends its viewers to see the film. While recent years have seen a more concerted effort to represent their protagonists (and antagonists, for that matter) as more complete characters, some earlier entries into the influential genre were well ahead of their time.
Sandwiched in the year between slasher film behemoths Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) is a well-received, if lesser known picture from director Fred Walton called When a Stranger Calls. Based on the urban legend, “the babysitter and the man upstairs,” the film quickly became popular for its tense 20-minute-long opening scene in which Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) is harassed with telephone calls while babysitting, only to learn that the caller is calling from inside the house. This scene, of course, would most famously inspire Wes Craven’s own opening sequence for Scream (1996), starring Drew Barrymore.
The success of the film led the studio to ask Walton about plans for a sequel, but Walton declined, saying that there was nothing more to be said. It would take another 14 years and a deal with cable television network Showtime for Walton to return to helm When a Stranger Calls Back, a sequel that would build on the foundation set by its predecessor and anticipate a hot-button topic 30 years into the future.
When a Stranger Calls Back follows many of the same beats as the first film, a choice that, rather than feeling rehashed, serves as both a guide rail for audience expectation and as a slight subversion of the by-now standard babysitter trope. It even re-enacts its own variation on the opening scene, except, in this case, babysitter Julia (Jill Schoelen) isn’t being harassed by an anonymous caller, but by a man knocking on the front door.
Like the first film, the sequel also devotes a significant portion of its runtime exploring the killer’s character, showing them as a deeply flawed, if not mildly sympathetic, character. What’s interesting, however, is that despite spending time with these killers, not much in the way of motive is revealed to us. Normally, even if only by the end of the film, the killer’s raison d’être is made explicit: Freddy Krueger is the spirit of an evil man seeking vengeance, Mrs. Voorhees believes she is avenging her son, and Norman Bates believes his overbearing mother to be at fault. Here, there is no such resolution—the stalker stalks because he can—or as William Landis tells Julia early on, from behind the locked front door, “Nobody else is home on this street. Just you.” This is partly why the film was successful in the first place. As frightening as a man in cover-alls lurking behind a hedge can be, or a chainsaw-wielding maniac, there’s something very relatable here for millions of teens working babysitting gigs, themselves. A man in a hockey mask isn’t likely to show up to your door with a machete in hand, but a stranger who won’t leave your stoop seems a little more plausible.
Besides this relatability, though, what really made me sit on the edge of my seat during When a Stranger Calls Back, is its realistic treatment of trauma that extends, not only to the psychological aftershock of the victim, but in its consistent application to the victim’s life, the way they are treated by figures of authority, as well as the importance of having a strong support group, even years later. After its more than 26-minute opening act, which ended, not in the childrens’ violent deaths, as in the first film, but in their unsolved kidnapping, the story picks up five years later, at the university which Julia now attends. When Julia begins discovering evidence of a break-in, small things—a misplaced book, an alarm she didn’t set, and chillingly, a child’s shirt hanging in her closet, she rushes to the police, despite knowing the reaction she should expect. In the hall, a detective asks them to send someone from the Dean of Women’s office to take care of a “hysterical co-ed,” as long as it’s “anyone but Johnson.”
“The reason for her existence is not tied to her personal boogeyman, but in reaching beyond it and lending others a hand in reaching beyond their own.”
When Jill Johnson (Carol Kane, reprising her role from the first film) walks through the doors, she has Julia repeat her story. Julia, exasperated and ashamed, retraces her steps, knowing how silly the scant evidence must sound to a room full of male officers—but Jill sits stoic in the center of the room, urging her forward. After Julia steps outside, the officers snicker, before Jill defiantly announces, “I believe her.”
In today’s context, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of that line. In 2018, when Christine Blasey Ford testified before Congress accusing then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, “believe women” became a rallying cry for survivors and advocates, in the face of a deep skepticism from the right-wing. The spectacle drew into focus, at a national level, just how difficult believing women still seems to be for us as a society. Fitting then, that Jill Johnson did just that in 1993, only two years after Anita Hill made similar accusations against Clarence Thomas during his own Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Jill’s statement in When a Stranger Calls Back is more powerful than any other in the film and it, perhaps unintentionally, sets the expectation for the rest of the film.
What I love most about this declaration is that it is neither an empty platitude nor a melodramatic preaching moment. Despite the detective’s insinuation that Jill Johnson is some kind of “radical feminism evangelist” that should be avoided at all costs, Jill doesn’t take her opportunity to stand on her soapbox scolding the officers for their indifferent response. She recognizes that the police can’t (or won’t) help, and so she takes Julia and leaves. It allows the film to develop a nuanced depiction of how victims must navigate their world in an organic way, rather than brazenly signaling or dwelling on its message. It’s just baked into Fred Walton’s script.
When Jill takes Julia under her care, promising that they will find the stalker and put an end to Julia’s terror, she does so earnestly. As they enter Jill’s apartment, we see striking similarities to Julia’s own space, and we begin to see—particularly for those who haven’t seen the first film—why Jill was so quick to trust Julia’s version of events. But while the two get better acquainted and start forming a game plan, Jill asks Julia, “Do you own a gun?”
Buying or carrying a firearm is a common enough trope of assault victims in American movies, because it’s a common enough occurrence in real life. More than 60% of gun owners in the U.S. do so for personal protection, and imminent threat of violence is one of the biggest motivating factors of first-time gun buyers. What is almost always missing from both the fictional and real-world narratives of these situations is the months or years of study and discipline to employ a deadly weapon. For example, in Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 (1981), a mute rape victim steals the gun from one of her attackers and goes on a vicious spree of vengeance against any man she perceives as a threat. In Coralie Fargeat’s cat-and-mouse thriller Revenge (2017), the left-for-dead hero Jen opens her shooting career with a long-distance hit with a shotgun. While these can be extremely cathartic scenes, they don’t exactly represent the typical experience a frightened new gun owner can expect.
When Jill gets a call that Julia is in the hospital—the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head—the understanding that falls over her face is sobering, as it is for the audience, and Walton’s script does little more than let us marinade in the same understanding. Not once does a doctor or officer interrogate Jill on where Julia may have gotten a gun, nor does Jill confess to anyone that it was her idea. In fact, the event doesn’t even cause Jill to undergo a Eureka! moment in which she changes her philosophy on self-defense—later, during the final showdown, she ends up using her own firearm without hesitation. The goal here is neither to persecute Jill nor advocate for her. Rather, the plot acknowledges that despite having Julia’s best interest in mind, Jill’s mentorship is not infallible. It avoids ignoring the frequently used “defend yourself” narrative, but without turning its characters into superheroes.
This approach can be contrasted against recent legacy franchise continuations Halloween (2018) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), both of which feature the return of the original “final girls” of their respective series. In each, the survivors have grown into battle-hardened warriors, waiting for their chance to strike back at the villain, despite, of course having already defeated them years before (and in Laurie Strode’s case, multiple times over several films). While these character developments make for exciting set-pieces, the reboots rob Laurie and Sally Hardesty of any chance at healing the trauma they went through, each having spent nearly half a century arming themselves, preparing for the day when they’d be attacked, and more or less being rewarded for it. And though When a Stranger Calls Back does open a similar door, it’s a key difference that makes it more impressive as a story. Jill, like Laurie and Sally, spent her years offscreen preparing herself in case she were to find herself in danger again, but she also counsels other women in similar circumstances. The reason for her existence is not tied to her personal boogeyman, but in reaching beyond it and lending others a hand in reaching beyond their own. It’s not until she finds herself triggered by a woman with a frighteningly similar experience to her own that her zeal prevents her from giving Julia the kind of support and attention that she needs.
It’s refreshing to see a stalker/slasher movie that doesn’t rely on the exploitation of its female protagonist, or turning a vulnerable teenage babysitter into a Rambo-like avenger. Rather, by serving us a more grounded depiction of what the effects of trauma can do to one’s life, When a Stranger Calls Back delivers a story that can be both difficult to watch and comforting to see represented on screen. The film remains, in my opinion, a criminally underseen thriller that, despite its cable TV pedigree, exceeds its already impressive predecessor.
Article written by Ande Thomas
Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.
