When A Stranger Calls Film Opening

When A Stranger Calls Cover

When A Stranger Calls 
(Fred Walton, 1979)

Budget: 70k

Gross: 21m

Produced By

• Columbia Pictures Corporation
• Melvin Simon Productions
• 
  
• Distributors
• Columbia Pictures (1979) (USA) (theatrical)

• Europa Film (1980) (Sweden) (theatrical)
• Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment (1981) (USA) (VHS)
• National Broadcasting Company (NBC) (1982) (USA) (TV) (broadcast premiere)
• AVCO Embassy Pictures (re-release)
• Melvin Simon Productions
• Mill Creek Entertainment (2012) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
• Odyssey (19??) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2006) (USA) (DVD)

Opening: In this opening, we see a teen girl who appears to represent Clover's final girl character. She is introduced to the film holding school books as she is babysitting, which is how the final girl is signified; being academic. However, she does not have brunette hair like stereotypical final girls do. Instead, she has ginger hair, which confuses the audience as we do not know if she is a final girl character or a scream queen, despite common scream queens being 'non academic' and hating school. The girl is then having a phone call to someone and is talking about a boy. She first appears on screen holding books, but seems to be more interested in talking to someone about 'Bobby'. This confuses the audience even more, because the stereotypical final girl is either single or is not interested in boys. This character is polysemic, meaning she could be the non stereotypical final girl or scream queen.

   We also see reflection Todorov's theory of equilibrium, as the film begins with a regular day to day event of a teenager babysitting. The equilibrium begins to be disrupted as continuous phone calls are passed through, from an unknown character, who is signified to be the antagonist as he is suggesting something is wrong. 

Useful Resources:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1023461-when_a_stranger_calls/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_a_Stranger_Calls_(1979_film)