‘The Caller’ – Why You Should Watch This 1980s Hidden Horror Gem

While I appreciate all kinds of horror, I do have a special fondness for movies about telephones. Particularly from a pre-cellphone era. That sense of aural menace is more tangible with a landline connection. However, my expectation for 1987’s The Caller, one solely based on the title alone, was not met upon first viewing; there are no menacing phone calls here. In fact, the titular use of “caller” in director Arthur Allan Seidelman and writer Michael Sloan’s movie is referring to a visitor. My disappointment was fleeting, though, because this story still offers plenty of mind games. The psychological terror is now done at an arm’s length, and with it comes a bizarre ending that seals this movie’s status as a hidden gem.

What stands out about The Caller is its small cast. The dialogue and scenery would suggest a larger group of characters is in store, but the movie is really carried by just Malcolm McDowell and Madolyn Smith. Smith, whose role here is simply credited as The Girl, is first seen walking around in a small town somewhere close to her rural and isolated cabin. She buys groceries, then fills up her car at a gas station. Her sense of decency — leaving money for gas when she can’t find an employee to pay — indicates this is a fair and safe place to live, yet the approaching danger comes from far beyond this area, not to mention is more vague and strange than anything this movie’s contemporaries were delivering at the time.

At first The Caller sets itself up to be more of a straightforward horror movie. But don’t be fooled by the cold open — an unknown party swings an ax down at a photo of The Girl — or any other misleading evidence, including a formulaic prelude to the eponymous character’s arrival. A lone woman showering at a cabin tucked away in the woods, drops of blood going unnoticed, and a sinister camera POV that gives the impression of stalking. Everything so far is textbook slasher. Once McDowell does show up to use the phone for his car troubles, the movie gradually slips into a different change of clothes.