THE CALLER
US, 2011, 92 minutes, Colour.
Rachelle Lefevre, Stephen Moyer, Lorna Raver, Luis Guzman, Ed Quinn.
Directed by Matthew Parkhill.
The Caller is a film that has proven itself popular with horror film fans. Although this is not a horror film with blood and gore, it is a film which plays with time differences in a manner of films like Frequency, where the past gets in touch with the present and the present tries to influence the past. But it is also a film of confused mental states and possible madness. It is also partly nightmare and partly reality.
Rachelle Lefevre appears as a divorcee see who rents an apartment to escape from her ex-husband, Ed Quinn. Luis Guzman has a cameo as the caretaker of the building. Mary begins to receive phone calls from a woman called Rose who talks to her about events 30 years earlier. Lorna Raver does an effective voice performance. The number of phone calls becomes incessant. Mary is also a disturbed by her ex-husband’s visits. By mistake, she meets a lecturer, John, Stephen Moyer, and he tries to protect her.
The plot becomes complicated when it appears that John died as a boy, that Rose in the past has abducted Mary and that Mary communicates with her younger self, trying to protect her.
The culmination is the arrival of Rose at the apartment, a fight with her ex-husband and his death, and her bricking him up in the wall of the apartment.
The film is quite well done of its type and has pleased the fans.
1. The impact of the film as horror? Psychological thriller?
2. The apartment, so much of the film confined to the apartment? The garden, the streets, restaurants? The university? The atmosphere of realism? The atmospheric score?
3. The title? Rose? Her voice? The sense of menace? Threats?
4. Mary’s story? The realism in the phone calls from her mother in the present? Separation from her husband? Before the judge, the issue of the dog and her keeping the dog? His visits to the house, confrontation outside the house? The threats? His hitting Mary? Her going to the university, into the wrong class, meeting John? His presence, her confiding in him, yet not wanting to depend on him? Going out, the discussions? His discussions with George? His later saying he had never met George? Her growing bewilderment? The effect of the phone calls? Rose and her boyfriend, Vietnam? George saying that it did not happen in the way Rose described? Mary and her visit to John’s parents, his death as a child, her visit to his grave? His being in the house, the sexual encounter, real or imagined? The build-up in Mary’s mind? Rose and her coming to the house? Breaking down the wall, discovering the skeletons? Rose’s killing her boyfriend? The ex-husband and his arrival, slap, the fight, his death? Mary bricking him up in the wall?
5. The picture of the ex-husband, conventional, in the courts, wanting the dog, his stalking his wife? Coming into the apartments? The final fight, slap, his death?
6. John, the university, Mary and her wanting the French conversation course? The later meetings, discussions, his coming to the house, the garden, fixing George’s machines? The attraction, the sexual encounter? His saying he had never met George? A ghost?
7. Rose, character, just a voice, seemingly mad, the stories of the past, growing more menacing, her abducting the child Mary? Her arrival and menace?
8. George, his work, explanations of the apartment, the previous tenants, his story about Rose, the truth, working with John? How real a character?
9. Enjoyment of the popular ingredients of menace, touches of horror, psychology, madness?
