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(2006) Director: Peter Mervis Way back in 1981, the movie Eyes Of A Stranger
was released to theaters, a slasher that's sort of obscure to this day
despite the fact that it was distributed by one of the major Hollywood
studios, plus that fact that the consensus among modern day
horror/slasher fans is that it's above average for the genre. Though
you might not know much about this particular slasher,
you can probably guess what the critical reaction to it was at the
time. Yes, the critics tore it apart as much as a masked killer does to
his victims. But to be fair to the critics, a number of them did admit
that unlike the typical slasher, they found a few aspects in this
particular one that they liked. Some of them praised the performances
of actresses Lauren Tewes and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who played the
female leads as less stereotypical and less helpless than usual. And
some critics begrudgingly admitted that they thought the movie was well
made, from the production values to the direction. Two such critics who
admitted that last point were Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on their
movie review television show. Though of course they made sure to point
out they felt the violence, bloodshed, and terror was too much for
their tender selves, they did add one interesting remark that other
critics hadn't made. Siskel pointed out the that movie's director, Ken
Wiederhorn (King Frat),
actually had a background of producing acclaimed documentary films at
the CBS television network. Siskel then lamented one of the facts of
the movie business that bothered him, that being even if you have a
prestigious background, more often than not the only way you can get
backing for a theatrical movie is to make your movie a horror movie,
since horror is often cheap to make and has an already loyal audience.
According to Siskel, this was what happened to Wiederhorn. As it turns out, my subsequent research uncovered that Wiederhorn was shoehorned into horror even before Eyes Of A Stranger. Four years earlier, Wiederhorn, while still working for CBS, made the now cult classic horror movie Shock Waves with Peter Cushing. The investors for that movie told Wiederhorn he could do just about anything as long as he made the movie a horror movie, so that their investment would have a high chance of making its money back and later a profit. While that movie did manage to reach both of those goals, Wiederhorn, upon his return to CBS, found that it threw a wrench into his documentary career. When his colleagues at CBS found out he made a horror movie, in their eyes that made him come across as someone who couldn't make serious documentaries. Wiederhorn soon after felt he had to leave CBS if he wanted to continue his filmmaking career. When I first heard all that I told you about Wiederhorn, quite frankly I was not surprised to hear about CBS' bad reaction. The sad fact in the filmmaking business is that more often than not, making a horror movie is seen as just one notch better than making a pornographic movie. True, some people getting their start in horror have gone on to better things, but people like Sean S. Cunningham (Friday The 13th) and Wes Craven (A Nightmare On Elm Street) have found it difficult to be considered for anything outside of horror once having dipped their toes in the genre. Let's face it - horror movies don't get much respect outside of die-hard horror movie fans. With that in mind, a question comes up: If you really wanted to be a movie director, but the only opportunities to sit in the director's chair were horror exercises, would you refuse and continue to be patient until (maybe) you are offered something more prestigious? Or would you take the opportunity because it is an opportunity to be a director in a legitimate project, albeit one with not much legitimacy, and be prepared for the possibility of being stuck in horror for the rest of your life? Personally, if someone came to me and pledged to 100%
bankroll a movie for me to direct, with the condition of it being a
horror movie, I would jump at the chance. If the movie turned out to be
bad, it would be quickly forgotten and I'd easily put the experience
behind me. If the movie You are probably wondering what When A Killer Calls does during all that looonnnggg time waiting for the police to call Trisha back. Well, it does this by not doing what the original movie did by having the heroine be alone - it actually introduces some supporting character. This includes next-door neighbor Charlie (Louis Graham, 2012: Doomsday), and Matt comes to the home dragging his brain-dead friends Frank (Derek Osedach, Snakes On A Train) and Chrissy (Sarah Hall, Transmorphers) along to hang out with them. Unfortunately, the movie finds next to nothing to use with these characters. Charlie is introduced in one short scene, and in his next and final scene he is quickly bumped off. Frank and Chrissy basically follow that same routine, albeit with a few more scenes and a bit more screen time. As for the main character of Trisha, it's only a notch or two above being a thankless role. We learn next to nothing (until near the end) about Trisha. The first twenty or so minutes are kind of rough for gauging this character; she doesn't bring anything into the movie apart from her cell phone. However, after this point, actress Rebeka Kochan does start to make a at times valiant effort to give her thin character some personality, from humor to terror. She's actually pretty decent in the role overall, kind of a surprise for an Asylum production with a typical ultra-low budget. In fact, looking at the supporting players, while I wouldn't say that they are great in their various roles, they manage for the most part to be adequate with whatever they have to do in front of the camera. While of course I would have wanted them to be somewhat better, when you watch an Asylum movie, you have to take whatever you can sift through the muck. Taking whatever I could get also applied to When A Killer Calls' direction. While in the following breakdown of what director Peter Mervis (Snakes On A Train) brings to the movie is certainly going to be critical at times, I realize that like other directors who have made Asylum movies, he was working with a really low budget and a really short shooting schedule, so I know he was certainly unable to give the movie enough oomph at times. As well, the low budget makes certain details shabby, from poorly recorded (or obviously overdubbed) dialogue to CGI muzzle flashes for a fired gun. But miracle of miracles, he does manage to accomplish some good things in the director's chair. For starters, when he can, he punches up the visuals by using camera tricks, like Dutch angles. Plus, while the movie is severely underlit and has you sometimes wonder why the characters don't flip a light switch, the low lighting along with the photography make the majority of the movie look and feel like one of those low budget independently-made slashers from the early '80s, giving the movie a nice retro charm at times. Additionally, there are some genuinely disturbing touches here and there; this is the rare horror movie unafraid to brutalize young children, for one thing, and towards the end when the remaining characters are trapped and put through psychological and physical torture by the killer, the movie gets to be genuinely unsettling. However, in most of the other scenes of horror, Mervis isn't able to accomplish anything near that creepy feeling. The stalking and kills are more often than not really quickly executed, and are sometimes so poorly choreographed and lit that it's hard to make out what is happening until afterwards, so much so that one character I thought was dead is reintroduced later as being alive. I'd also like to add that Mervis has the annoying habit of sprinkling in annoying modern editing techniques, such as when the frame is zoomed in and out instantly while static and harsh noises play on the soundtrack. This even happens a lot when at a particular moment nothing horrifying is happening onscreen. This editing, plus the aforementioned problems such as the padded script and characters, and the badly pulled off stalking and killing result in When A Killer Calls coming across as more often than not "soft" when it comes to its selling point of horror. For a real cheapie, it's amazing that they managed in the end to make a mediocre horror exercise, but I think even fans of low-budget horror will wish someone connected to this movie would have called the president of The Asylum and asked them to give director Mervis more money, more time, and a better script. (Posted June 1, 2026)
See also: Allan Quatermain,
Don't Go In The House, Sorority House Massacre |
turned out to be good, and it pigeonholed me
into a career of directing multiple other horror movies, so what? Fans
are fans, even if they are horror fans, and many directors have become
famous for making one kind of movie. Still, if I had the experience of
what writer/director Peter Mervis had with 
