By Todd Garbarini
Just after the school year ended in June 1984, I went to a friend’s house on a Friday night to watch the premiere of Carlin on Campus, an HBO concert of one of my favorite comedians, the legendary George Carlin. When the concert was over, my friend switched around until he reached NBC-tv. They were airing When A Stranger Calls, a 1979 thriller starring Carol Kane, Charles Durning, and Colleen Dewhurst. I saw the film from the beginning, and the first twenty or so minutes had me utterly captivated. It presented a scenario that I found to be terrifying, and apparently so did Rex Reed, whose proclamation “some of the most terrifying sequences ever filmed” was used in the newspaper ads. I thought it was so original – until I saw Bob Clark’s frightening Black Christmas (1974) four years later and saw where the “inspiration” may have come from.
Just after the school year ended in June 1984, I went to a friend’s house on a Friday night to watch the premiere of Carlin on Campus, an HBO concert of one of my favorite comedians, the legendary George Carlin. When the concert was over, my friend switched around until he reached NBC-tv. They were airing When A Stranger Calls, a 1979 thriller starring Carol Kane, Charles Durning, and Colleen Dewhurst. I saw the film from the beginning, and the first twenty or so minutes had me utterly captivated. It presented a scenario that I found to be terrifying, and apparently so did Rex Reed, whose proclamation “some of the most terrifying sequences ever filmed” was used in the newspaper ads. I thought it was so original – until I saw Bob Clark’s frightening Black Christmas (1974) four years later and saw where the “inspiration” may have come from.
- 8/10/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Meet former police lieutenant John Clifford. Seven years ago, Clifford was directly involved in the investigation and trial of Curt Duncan, a deranged sadist. Duncan had brutally murdered the two young children of one Dr. Alexander Mandrakis. Duncan was found guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a mental asylum. However, Duncan is on the prowl again. He has escaped from his padded room. Clifford has since left the police force and is a pri…...
- 5/21/2011
- Horrorbid
Tonight, Flux Theater Ensemble will have its NYC premiere of the play "Jacob's House." But that's not the play they were planning to do just a few weeks ago. In just a short time, the young company received a real-world education in how to make the best of a difficult situation. Flux, an award winning theater ensemble which regularly develops plays, had been planning to do Archibald MacLeish's Pulitzer Price-winning classic "Jb" as part of their 2009-2010 season, titled "Give and Take." "Flux normally lives with a play we're interested in producing—new or classic—for over a year, discussing and workshopping it, before moving into production mode," says Flux artistic director and "Jacob's House" playwright August Schulenburg. As anyone who's used an existing modern play knows, you need to obtain the rights to produce the work, which can be a time-consuming and costly process—one with which Flux had some experience.
- 4/30/2010
- backstage.com
Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) meets with the Mandrakis family to see that their children are looked after while they head out for dinner and a movie. Piece of cake, considering the children are already sound asleep upstairs. But Jill’s seemingly mundane evening of studies and telephone banter takes a turn for the worse, when Jill begins receiving a string of eerie telephone calls from some anonymous caller in which she is unable to identify. Have you checked the children? The caller asks repeatedly. Hesitant to check on the children, anchored by fear - Jill telephones the police, who in turn arrange to have any future calls traced. As Jill continues to catch the creepy incoming calls, she begins hearing strange sounds from within the house. Before Ms. Johnson has the chance to learn the fate of the children upstairs, police phone her to inform her that those mysterious calls she’s been receiving,...
- 9/1/2009
- by no-reply@fangoria.com (Matt Molgaard)
- Fangoria
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