There’s bad horror. There’s so bad it’s good horror. And then there’s When a Killer Calls, a 2006 direct-to-DVD atrocity from The Asylum, the cinematic junkyard that specializes in making knockoff “mockbusters” designed to trick grandmas at Blockbuster. Released to coincide with the remake of When a Stranger Calls, this thing is less a film and more a cry for help.
The title might be When a Killer Calls, but a more accurate name would be When the Audience Leaves a Voicemail and Never Calls Back.
Dial Tone of Doom
The plot begins, as all good slasher knockoffs do, with a mother and her two kids being slaughtered in their own home. Don’t worry, though—the killer makes sure to take cell phone pics of his crimes. Yes, you read that right: he’s essentially the MySpace-era Zodiac Killer. Imagine Ted Bundy with a Nokia flip phone. Terrifying, right?
We then meet our protagonist, Trisha Glass, played by Rebekah Kochan. She’s babysitting a little girl named Molly, which is unfortunate because the last time she babysat, her clients were murdered. That’s a résumé stain Monster.com can’t fix.
Naturally, the creepy calls start rolling in. At first, she thinks it’s her boyfriend Matt messing with her. But soon the calls escalate from “tee-hee prank” to “congratulations, here are photos of a triple homicide.” At this point, a reasonable person would grab the kid and leave the house. But Trisha? She decides to wait it out because apparently babysitters in horror movies have the survival instincts of a goldfish.
The Supporting Cast: Discount Bin Meat Bags
Matt eventually shows up, dragging along his two friends, Frank and Chrissy. Frank is one of those macho idiots who brandishes guns in parking lots, and Chrissy is his perpetually annoyed girlfriend. They are less “characters” and more “future corpses with dialogue.”
Then there’s Charlie, the nosy neighbor who knows all the neighborhood gossip, like Molly’s ex-babysitter who “stunk.” Unfortunately, Charlie soon gets killed too. Because in horror movies, neighborly concern is always fatal.
As for Molly herself, she’s a child whose main hobby seems to be pulling pranks on Trisha, including hiding in garbage cans. That’s right: the child spends more time jumping out of bins than Pennywise the Clown.
The Killer: Mr. Predictable, At Your Service
Eventually, we learn the killer is Richard Hewitt, the grieving husband/father of the Hewitt family who got murdered in the opening. He’s also responsible for the deaths of Molly’s parents, Charlie, Frank, and eventually half the state troopers in whatever jurisdiction this is supposed to be.
Richard’s motive? He’s obsessed with Trisha because he raped her once and decided this meant true love. It’s the kind of “twist” that thinks it’s edgy but lands somewhere between “gross” and “please shut off the DVD player.” He spends the movie taunting her, tying up her friends, and monologuing like a guy who just discovered Reddit conspiracy forums.
This isn’t a killer who inspires fear. This is a killer who inspires boredom, because every time he’s onscreen you know exactly what’s coming: another lecture, another lazy kill, another audience sigh.
The Basement of Bad Decisions
The climax of the film takes place in the house’s basement, because of course it does. Trisha wakes up tied to a beam, gagged, with Matt, Chrissy, and Frank all incapacitated around her. Richard decides to torture Chrissy by slashing her breasts (because subtlety died in the first draft of the script) and then pouring alcohol on the wounds. It’s a scene that’s less “shocking horror” and more “junior high kid writing torture fanfiction in math class.”
Two cops show up—finally—but are immediately dispatched by Richard in record time. At this point, the police might as well have been played by inflatable lawn ornaments.
Eventually, Matt tries to play hero but is killed. Trisha, however, manages to free herself, grab a gun, and shoot Richard multiple times until he is finally, mercifully dead.
She then wanders out of the house, bloodied and traumatized, ready to star in the inevitable sequel that, thank God, never materialized.
The Asylum Effect
You can’t review When a Killer Calls without acknowledging its parent company, The Asylum. These are the same geniuses responsible for Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, and Atlantic Rim. Their business model is simple: make a cheap knockoff of whatever big movie is coming out, slap it on shelves the same week, and pray someone’s aunt accidentally buys it for Christmas.
And boy, does it show here. Everything screams “shot in eight days with the budget of a used car.” The lighting looks like someone left the basement bulb on. The acting is wooden enough to start a campfire. And the editing? Imagine someone learning iMovie for the first time while blindfolded.
Performances: The Human Equivalent of Dial-Up Internet
Rebekah Kochan as Trisha does her best, but her “scream queen” energy feels more like “slightly inconvenienced mall shopper.” Robert Buckley as Matt exists mainly to be tied up and killed. Mark Irvingsen as Richard Hewitt plays the villain with the charisma of wet drywall.
Everyone else exists to pad the body count. Characters wander in, say something dumb, and then die. It’s less a narrative and more a conveyor belt of clichés.
Logic? Never Heard of It.
The movie has all the logical consistency of a broken payphone. The police trace the calls and inform Trisha they’re coming from inside the house (of course). But apparently they’re in no rush to actually arrive until the killer has murdered half the cast.
Molly, the little girl, is allegedly the person Trisha is protecting, yet she disappears for long stretches of the film like the writers forgot about her. When she finally turns up dead, it’s treated with about as much gravity as a stubbed toe.
And let’s not forget: Richard somehow kills two cops, multiple teenagers, and two parents all in one night, while simultaneously running a full-time creepy phone harassment business. Somebody give this man a time-management seminar.
Final Thoughts: Wrong Number, Hang Up Immediately
When a Killer Calls is the kind of horror movie that gives bad horror movies a bad name. It’s lazy, derivative, and exploitative without being scary, fun, or even competently made. The Asylum tried to cash in on the hype of When a Stranger Calls but instead delivered something that makes you wish your DVD player had caller ID.
It’s not even “so bad it’s good.” It’s just bad. If you want a creepy phone-call movie, watch the original Black Christmasor even the 2006 When a Stranger Calls remake (and that’s saying something). If you want a laugh, watch Scream. If you want to punish yourself for unknown sins, When a Killer Calls is available—probably for free—in the darkest corners of streaming.
Final Score: 1 out of 10 wrong numbers.
One point for making me appreciate dial-up internet again, because at least that only tortured me and not the concept of cinema itself.
