Don't Answer the Phone

Directed by Robert Hammer.

1980. Rated R, 85 minutes.
Cast:

Nicholas Worth

Flo Lawrence

James Westmoreland

Ben Frank

A photographer (Worth) with some serious issues goes around raping and strangling women. In his spare time, he calls up psychiatrist Dr. Lindsay Gale (Lawrence) on her radio show. Worth gives a surprisingly good performance as our killer. However, he wasn't given much to work with in this no-budget thriller. Its effective in showing the villain unravel and become more frantic and even desperate as the film goes on. The rest of the script is so lame, and at times so stupid, you can't take any of it as seriously as its obviously meant to be. This just means there is a solid amount of unintentional humor. Sadly, the DVD version I got a hold of contains what appears to be a highly and oddly edited version. Some curse words are obviously cut from the audio while others aren't. Each kill scene abruptly ends just as the killer starts to rip the victim's clothes off yet during a couple scenes in an adult bookstore you can plainly see pictures of naked women plastered on all the walls. There's also the setup of a love scene from which we skip to the aftermath when the couple is lying in bed. Though its dimly lit you can still pretty clearly see her breasts. It's a bizarre viewing experience but in a frustrating, confusing manner moreso than the fun romps of 'so bad they're awesome' movies. Granted, I'll probably have to see the unedited version to really do a proper review. As it is, what I saw was painful.

MY SCORE: 2/10