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Review

Following the success of John Carpenter’s classic Halloween (1978) the seeds for what eventually became the slasher genre were well sown. In the years immediately following slasher films would come to dominate the American branch of the horror genre. With a few exceptions these were generally tepid and derivative films that constantly recycled the principal plot device of a maniacal killer stalking and killing photo friendly teens. Some of the few interesting films to emerge during this time would emerge under the slasher banner, but represent a decidedly grittier, nastier strain of the horror genre. Notable examples of this more exploitative branch of slasher cinema would be William Lustig’s brutal cult classic Maniac (1980), Romano Scavolini’s blood-soaked “video nasty” Nightmares In A Damaged Brain (1981) and of course, the film reviewed here – Robert Hammer’s Don’t Answer The Phone!

As with the aforementioned Lustig and Scavolini efforts Don’t Answer The Phone took full advantage of the commercial thunder of Halloween while at the same time delivering an emphasis on sexually fuelled violence that owed more to the influence of the grassroots American exploitation films that had been playing NYC’s fabled 42nd Street Grindhouse circuit for years. In short Don’t Answer The Phone! might have its roots in the post-Halloween slasher craze, but it’s heart most certainly resides in the Grindhouse.

The film takes place in the seedy, crime-ridden urban districts of Hollywood, California where a serial killer referred to by police as “The Strangler” is sexually assaulting and murdering a series of attractive young women.

The perpetrator of these crime’s happens to be Kirk Smith (Worth) – a rotund, psychotic ex-Vietnam veteran turned amateur photographer who has developed a pathological, misogynistic hatred of women. Soon Smith finds a scapegoat for his hatred in the shape of female psychologist Dr Lindsay Gale (Gerrish), to whose phone in radio show he is a regular listener (and occasional caller). Smith shifts the focus of his campaign onto Gale by tracking down and killing young women who phone in to her show.

Investigating detectives Lt McCabe (Westmoreland) and Sgt Hatcher (Frank) soon realise that the motivations for the actions of “The Strangler” are in some way connected to Dr Gale’s show. Therefore they decide to use her as live bait in rder to lure “The Strangler” into their trap. This turns out to be an astute move on their part as, having throttled his way through her audience, Smith is now out to claim his “ultimate prize” – the life of Dr Lindsay Gale herself.

In terms of intent and tone Don’t Answer The Phone! is right up there with the very nastiest efforts followers of the “maniac on the prowl” subgenre are ever likely to come across. Lacking any real agenda and largely eschewing any sense of suspense Hammer (in his only directorial credit) instead makes a beeline for the nearest gutter and wallows in it like a pro.

The film openly invites the viewer to place themselves in the shoes of Worth’s psychotic killer allowing them to share in his perverted voyeurism as he salaciously observes his soon to be victims undressing or lounging around in their skimpy nightwear. Clearly the only motive for this is to provide cheap, nasty titillation to the viewer. The killings themselves are also filtered through the same grotty mentality. There is no real gore as Smith’s motif is strangulation, but these scenes are still driven by a gloating sense of sadism which reaches its peak as one scantily clad clutches a teddy bear as Smith moves in for the kill. Many horror fans weaned on traditionalist horror fare have never been comfortable with the arguably misogynistic slasher coda of hacking up attractive young women – those conforming to such a view are liable to spend a few hours saying their Hail Mary’s after a viewing Don’t Answer The Phone!

Accusations of misogyny, which it must be said would be more than valid, are offset somewhat by the fact that Don’t Answer The Phone! is not a particularly well-made film in any sense. Robert Hammer’s direction rarely rises above amateur levels and the film swiftly becomes characterised by static, lifeless and unimaginative camerawork and wildly uneven pacing. After doing a proficient if undistinguished job of establishing Worth’s killer, Hammer opts to shift the emphasis of his film onto the police investigation into the killing being carried out by Jake Westmoreland and Ben Frank’s cop characters. This soon bogs the film down and is made worse by the fact that Westmoreland and Frank are both truly awful in their roles. Despite their fairly prolific careers in both film and television both actors come across as talentless ciphers reeling off exaggerated versions of all the clichéd, macho tough guy slogans and mannerisms usually found in bad television cop shows.

In all fairness Smith’s obsession with radio show psychologist Lindsay Gale does lend Don’t Answer The Phone! a much needed sense of direction. This also leads to the films most compelling scene when Smith coerces a drug addicted prostitute into phoning in to Dr Gale’s show and then throttles her live on air while Dr Gale listens in horror. Unfortunately however, Flo Gerrish as Dr Gale performs every bit as badly as Westmoreland and Frank. As a result Dr Gale comes across as insipid and dislikeable and it becomes hard to really care whether Smith will succeed in killing her or not. Messrs Westmoreland, Frank and Gerrish might be bad but they are made to look Oscar worthy by certain members of the supporting cast in particular some of the actresses (for want of a better term) playing Smith’s victims who reel off their lines as if they were reciting from cue cards. Just as bad is the complete and utter abomination of a soundtrack contributed by Byron Allred, which alternates between disco-themed faux jazz straight out of a bad seventies porn flick and blaring, tuneless synthesiser row (well it was the early eighties after all).

The saving grace of Don’t Answer The Phone! proves to be the performance of genre stalwart Nicholas Worth as the psychotic Kirk Smith. With the odds stacked against him Worth delivers a superb, compelling, intentionally OTT turn for which he deservedly won the “Best Actor” Award at the 1980 Sitges International Film Festival (the horror genre’s equivalent of the Oscar’s back then). Worth makes for a simultaneously unnerving yet intriguing presence. In Smith’s “quieter” moments he is regularly shown lifting weights in front of a statue of the crucified Christ, heaving his chest and bellowing maniacally. At other times he is found staring at his reflection in a mirror conducting angst ridden conversations with his (deceased?) father before bursting into floods of tears, possibly hinting at some past trauma or history of abuse. There is also a cleverly maintained sense of ambiguity as to just what Smith’s motivations to kill are which only tends to make his warped persona all the more absorbing. While parental abuse is heavily hinted at as a probable root cause of Smith’s psychosis it is still only a possibility. There are also hints that Smith’s tour of duty in Vietnam may be a factor while a minor emphasis on Christian iconography suggests that maybe he is acting out of some skewed sense of religious duty. Improbably when the time comes for Smith to move in for the kill on his victims, Worth succeeds in cranking up the intensity even higher. With a pair of tights pulled over his head Worth launches into brutal, frenzied strangulations, letting out a wheezing Muttley-style laugh as he chokes the life out of his victims. Without exaggeration Worth delivers one of the most frighteningly convincing depictions of a serial killer to be found in the annals of exploitation cinema. It is perhaps a shame it is not showcased in a much better film than Don’t Answer The Phone!

Genre fans based in the UK would be hard pushed to see Don’t Answer The Phone! in anything resembling it’s original form. For its original UK cinema release back in 1980 the BBFC cut Don’t Answer The Phone! fairly heavily befre granting a theatrical X certificate. Shortly after this same censored version enjoyed a pre-certificate video release on the WOV 2000 label. It was at this point that Don’t Answer The Phone! gained a measure of notoriety here in the UK with some considering it a borderline “Video Nasty although it has never been officially recognised as such. Subsequent DVD releases in both the UK and the United States have been heavily cut although an uncut US DVD release is scheduled at the time of writing for October 2006.

Although Don’t Answer The Phone! is not especially well-made or involving it would still be rather churlish not to give Hammer credit for delivering on the films sole promise of providing viewers with plentiful cheap, unashamedly squalid thrills. Even in its expurgated form Don’t Answer The Phone! more than delivers the sleazy goods promised by its gloriously lurid and trashy UK poster art. While the average viewer might be somewhat troubled by its depiction of women as characterless mannequins for titillating voyeurism and sexually driven violence those who like a hefty dose of sleaze with their horror will no doubt get a kick out of this.

The truth is that with its colourless, flat direction, poor pacing and woefully stilted performances Don’t Answer The Phone! would be a more or less a washout if not for the formidable screen presence of Nicholas Worth as the unfathomably unhinged Smith. It is the brilliance of his performance (and that alone) which elevates Don’t Answer The Phone! in status from a shoddy, tasteless wallow in grot to a nasty yet serviceable and at times even mildly compulsive exercise in exploitative stalk and throttle.

Also Try… Maniac (1980, William Lustig) / Nightmares In A Damaged Brain / Visiting Hours / He Knows You’re Alone / When A Stranger Calls (1979, Fred Walton).

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Piczo