When A Stranger Calls

Having watched the 1979 classic "When a Stranger Calls" a while ago, I was interested to see what the 2006 remake had to offer.

Surprised I hadn't seen it sooner, I soon became aware of why only 9% of critics on Rotten Tomotoes gave it a positive review.

With unconvincing characters and incredibly mediocre acting this film soon became uninteresting to me and in some ways extremely tedious, in ways that the original wasn't.

However, despite this, I was able to take note of some of the clear conventions they used and gave me some ideas that we can put into our final film.

     Such as:

• Long periods of silence and suspense followed by quick action shots and events.
• Dark/low key lighting 
• Hardly any graphic violence which would take it into the horror genre, but rather packed with suspense and tense moments.
• Orchestral scores which match the action to provide tension and also symbolising dramatic events. 
• Lots of closeups and shadows to provide ambiguity and keep the audience just as unaware as the character.