When a Stranger Calls

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

Designed to capitalize on the title and premise of the original but offers little to those who fondly remember it.

Variety Joe Leydon

A modestly clever concept gets indifferent execution in When a Stranger Calls, another bigger-yet-blander remake of an allegedly "classic" '70s shocker.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

After an hour of red herrings, in which Jill investigates creepy corridors or opens rattling closet doors with no results, the only real danger is that we'll become bored to death. For real thrills, rent the original, turn down the lights and scare yourself silly.

Premiere Channing Joseph

Ironically, for all of Stranger's faults, director Simon West has probably made a perfect date movie: just suspenseful enough to keep you arm-in-arm with your beau or belle; but silly enough that you'll both laugh about it afterwards.

The New York Times Anita Gates

Jake Wade Wall's screenplay does deserve a word of praise. It has managed to incorporate the advent of cellphones, the *69 command and caller ID, which could have easily made the entire story impossible.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The movie ends with a bizarre and unsatisfying denouement. The epilogue, which is designed either to set up a sequel or lampoon "Halloween 2," plays like a sour last note. I suppose someone thought it was clever, but it doesn't work.

Village Voice Matt Singer

This version is a thin, protracted study in shifting Hollywood strategies. The original, while dramatically spotty, was an almost experimental concoction of horror and thriller. The 2006 model, in contrast, is straight-up formula.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

When a Stranger Calls never manages to convey the primal, almost atavistic terror that has earned John Carpenter's movies and the "Scream" franchise their places in the teen horror canon. The most lasting psychological effect of this pulp non-classic will most likely be limited to a deep pathological fear of Architectural Digest.

Empire Kim Newman

Loud, noisy, flashy but too rarely chilling.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Rather than remake the entire original movie, Simon West and screenwriter Jake Wade Wall have taken only that now-classic first act and padded it out into a dull, filler-filled feature that's remarkably void of any new ideas.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This remake takes an alternate tack from the original feature, expanding the story of "The Sitter" to a full 83 minutes, but the result is dull and painfully generic.

LA Weekly Tim Grierson

Amounts to an assault of jarring music cues and peek-a-boo scares that starts off mechanical and ends up utterly desperate.

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

Droopy remake.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The original should have been a short film; the new version shouldn't exist at all.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

When a Stranger Calls is ba-a-a-a-c-k, in frightless form, updated for the age of anytime minutes and caller ID.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Even the element of surprise isn't enough to save this film, which has too many slow parts and features an ending that's extremely tepid by 21st century horror movie standards.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Ineptly directed by Simon West, the scare-free When a Stranger Calls is the worst of the seminal horror movies from the late '70s and early '80s that have been getting the remake treatment lately.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Even by the lowest standards, this is a frightless, cynically made movie.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

It's an inferior remake (of a movie that wasn't that great to begin with), it's poorly acted, and it's yet another in an unending string of PG-13 "horror" movies that do nothing to build even the most rudimentary sense of real dread.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Long distance information? Get me Hollywood, USA: I’ve got a rusty ice pick to bury in the gullet of whoever greenlighted this pointless exercise in masturbatory tedium.