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— by Larry Carroll
CULVER CITY, California — It's been a long, long time since anybody's checked on the children. It's been more than 25 years, in fact, since a sadistic killer relentlessly terrorized a frantic babysitter in "When a Stranger Calls," a horror film whose influence can be seen and felt in movies as recent the "Scream" series and 2002's claustrophobic Colin Farrell thriller, "Phone Booth."
"Have you checked the children?"
That five-word phrase, uttered repeatedly and with virtually no elaboration by the chilling voice on the other end of the telephone in the original "When a Stranger Calls" may soon be terrifying a new generation, thanks to a modern-day remake that re-imagines the movie's chilling opening sequence and expands it into a feature-length film.
For the new film's star, 18-year-old actress Camilla Belle, it was a babysitting gig too good to pass up.
"We're trying to keep that 15 minutes going for the whole film," Belle says of the original movie's urban-myth-inducing first few scenes. Since those scenes are the only part of the original "Stranger" that most viewers recall, a recent tour of the film set left little doubt that this time around, it's all about the babysitter, the caller and one unrelentingly ringing phone.
"Jill is in high school," the acclaimed "Ballad of Jack and Rose" co-star says of her character. "She has a boyfriend who's cheating on her with her best friend, and she's going through that kind of teenage, high school drama. She's an athlete, a runner. That's kind of her hobby — sprinting and running and training, and she goes to baby-sit at this house in the middle of nowhere, in the woods, at night, and has to deal with prank phone calls. She doesn't know where they're coming from and she has kids to take care of. It's quite a frightening situation."
In the scene being filmed on the 12th of 35 scheduled shooting days, Tiffany (Katie Cassidy, the daughter of another '70s classic — blow-dried pop icon David Cassidy) prank calls an already harried Jill, and then surprises her by walking into the living room. The tactless blonde is looking to do some drinking, and also wants to discuss Bobby, the boy Jill has had a crush on since the ninth grade. When Tiffany makes an off-hand comment about having let herself in through the open garage door, however, the frenzied babysitter runs off to secure the area.
"I think people are also going to watch this while they're babysitting, or while they're home by themselves, and freak themselves out," Cassidy predicts after the scene is shot, and before offering up her own, much simpler solution to Jill's dilemma. "I'd star-69 his ass."
The set is an enormous, upscale-looking home, wedged onto a Culver City soundstage doubling as a small Colorado town. The children's bedroom is a playful combination of bright blues and greens; the hallways are filled with bookshelves and antique phones acting as in-joke bookends. In the center of the "downstairs" is a faux courtyard, filled with bamboo, a pond and flittering birds. Explore the modernist living room a little further, however, and you see Jill's textbooks sitting on a coffee table next to the film's true star: a simple, black, corded phone that would not look out of place in any mid-level manager's office.
"The scariest thing about the phone is who's on the other end of it," insists director Simon West ("Lara Croft: Tomb Raider"). "Even though the technology's moved on [in the last quarter-century], we're still sticking to, 'Who is on the end of that phone?' Obviously, we also use some of the things that we all know about, like caller ID, cell phones, picture phones and things like that. We're incorporating some of the newer technology [into the movie]."
Slightly more advanced is Cassidy's Tiffany, played with a materialistic, bitchy glee that makes her scenes feel like outtakes from "Mean Girls." While Belle's Jill Johnson expresses her earthiness by wearing a pair of Chuck Taylor All-Stars, Tiffany sports high-heeled boots, a penchant for tequila and a glittery cell-phone that would make Paris Hilton envious.
"She's all about the glamour," laughs Cassidy, showing off her device. "Tiffany's got a little silver cat on the front and diamonds around the screen. And then you open it up and it's the same pink cat on the inside, with diamonds hanging off the thing and this little fringe."
Although their characters may be in constant danger, real-life friends Belle and Cassidy have provided the film with almost as many laughs behind the cameras as there are screams in front of it. For one of their favorite jokes, the giggling pair recently employed the horror film's trademark question.
"Who can we prank call?" asks Belle.
"I think we should do Dieter," Cassidy replied, typing numbers into her phone. Dieter Busch is the second assistant director on the film.
The co-conspirators smile as the speaker-phone yields a dial tone.
"Use a scary voice," Cassidy whispers.
After a few rings the assistant director, setting up for the next shot in an adjoining room, picks up: "Hello?"
Cupping their hands, both young women lean in close to the phone and deepen their voices: "Have you checked the children?"
After a brief moment of confusion, Dieter replies matter-of-factly. "My children are sleeping right now," he says, as the actresses crack up.
For this remake, tough-guy Tommy Flanagan — Maximus' loyal, hard-as-nails servant Cicero in "Gladiator" and the sewer-bomber psycho in "Sin City" — has been tapped to provide the homicidal voice on the other end of the line. Let's just hope he doesn't take any acting pointers from the film's fun-loving (and extremely non-threatening) leading ladies.
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