TOP TEN PHONE CALLS

TEN TOP PHONE CALLS IN HORROR

The ringing of a phone strikes terror into the hearts of some. Is it a cold-call? Is it work? Is it that friend you've been trying to freeze out of your life? Well, it could actually be worse! Here are ten of the scariest phone calls the horror genre has to offer.

Halloween (1978)

Proof that Michael Myers isn't just a killing juggernaut with a mask fetish… he also has a morbid sense of humour. In this scene with the lovely genre actress P.J. Soles (playing the brilliantly named Lynda Van Der Klok), he appears as an archetypical "sheet ghost", complete with comedy spectacles. Unfortunately, Lynda assumes that he's her boyfriend Bob, who Michael has left impaled in the kitchen downstairs. Unable to get a reaction from him, she phones Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) who is babysitting across the street and is promptly strangled with the phone cord. After a classic response from Laurie ("First I get your famous chewing, now I get your famous squealing"), it prompts the final act as a curious Laurie encounters The Shape for the first time.

976-Evil (1988)

Mostly known for being the directorial debut of one Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund, this minor horror (literally) demonises the premium-rate telephone number system that was popular in the late 1980s but has since been superseded. Hopeless nerd Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys from "Fright Night") seeks guidance by constantly ringing the title number and getting a personalised "Horror-Scope" (accessed by tapping 666 naturally). Its mostly lame voiceovers telling him to act like a "real man", but one call sees his accepted a "reverse call" where a crappy blue SFX covers his body, and he gradually transforms into a demon. Full marks, however, for showing the portal to Hell as ice-covered, rather than the usual Hellfire and Brimstone.