Murder by Phone (1982)

User Rating:

4.8/10   

Director:

Michael Anderson

Writers:

Michael Butler (screenplay) &
Dennis Shryack (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

December 1982 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller | Mystery | Sci-Fi

Plot:

A disgruntled phone company employee develops a device whereby those answering a phone can be murdered...

Plot Keywords:

Death | Revenge | Investigation | Man Hunt | Telephone Company

Cast

Richard Chamberlain	...	Nat Bridger
John Houseman	...	Stanley Markowitz
Sara Botsford	...	Ridley Taylor
Robin Gammell	...	Noah Clayton
Gary Reineke	...	Lt. Meara
Barry Morse	...	Fred Waites
Alan Scarfe	...	John Websole
James B. Douglas	...	Jack Gilsdorf
Ken Pogue	...	Fil Thorner
Neil Munro	...	Winters
Jefferson Mappin	...	Photographer
Tom Butler	...	Detective Tamblyn
Colin Fox	...	Dr. Alderman
Luba Goy	...	Beth Freemantle
Lenore Zann	...	Connie Lawson

Also Known As:

Bells (Europe: English title) (video title)
Hell's Bells
The Calling

Runtime:

79 min (re-edited American version) | Belgium:95 min (video version)

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | Norway:18 | UK:15 | USA:R | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Kleinburg, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)

Quotes:

[last lines]
Nat Bridger: I'll call ya!

thriller still pretty good in its cut form

Much more of a gap between the invention of the telephone and this movie, and the invention of the television and the movie Murder By Television, for some reason.....

I saw the cut version of this, which was still rated R surprisingly, despite there being no nudity, just a couple of not-too-bad cuss words, and some deaths that weren't too terribly horrific. This could hardly get anything worse than a PG-13 rating today. I'd be curious what was cut from the movie.

Anyway, a young woman answers a phone ringing in a subway station. Strange sounds come from the phone, and she begins having a seizure of sorts, blood drips from her eyes, and then she is forcefully blown away from the phone, while the receiver ignites in flames.

The young woman was a former student of Richard Chamberlain's character, an

environmental science professor, I think. Her father asks him to investigate her death, which he was told was a heart attack. Chamberlain learns about the phone from a bag lady, and gets some help from a woman painting a mural at the phone company's headquarters. Meanwhile, other people keep dying the same way.

One of the most amusing moments for me was when John Houseman's character drawled "I've earned it." Houseman had done some famous commercials for Smith-Barney saying "They earned money the old-fashioned way: they earned it" - with that same pronunciation. I don't know which came first, the commercials or this movie (I'd guess the former).