A brief taxonomy of phone calls in horror movies

The characters in horror movies often find themselves in situations involving urgent need to make or Get phone calls– A simple task that is inevitably complicated by the monster that is after them. This trope is particularly thriving in the media placed during the era of ground lines, but it is The genre followed in Smart-Telephon eraalso. Let’s look at the different types of horrors of phone calls in movies.

The scary call (non-subnormal)

You’re home alone. The phone rings and has a stranger from the other end. It may be the wrong number. It may be someone who has been asking if you have checked the children lately. Or he may be someone who wants to know what your favorite scary movie is … and what your inside looks like.

The scary (but too human) call returns to the earliest movies When a stranger called (1979) and Black Christmas (1974), exploiting the city legend of the killer who recruits from the house. Black Christmas“The ominous perversion of the obscene phone call – who screams, moan, threatens, grandmothers, and sometimes sounds as if he speaks with many voices at once – there is one of the most masted hearing creations of horror.

Two decades after Black Christmas., Scream leaned into the already familiar idea of ​​the calling killer; Ghostface has an irresistible desire to make fun of his victims before he drives them out, and Scream He winks the obvious cliché, making it a fan of scary movies.

The scary call (supernatural)

The idea of ​​this taxonomy actually came up because 1988. 976-EvilDirected by Robert Freddie Krueger Englund, it arrives for trembling this month. It is about children who are recruiting a mental hot line, which is actually a direct connection with Satan, who skillfully thinks that someone is gullible enough to seek guidance from payment luck may not have a very strict grip on their soul.

But the supernatural phone call is a widely used story device – a recent example is The black phoneIn which a teenager, who is held captive by a serial killer, uses the titular object to talk to the deceased victims of the fiancé. The dead who calls the living is a favorite horror story – 1961. Zone The Episode “Call long distance” offers a touching early pattern.

I came in with a particularly cheeky use of the supernatural call Ring movies; Watch the forbidden video tape and you can expect an entity to connect and touch you with confirmation that you only have seven days to live. Supernatural telephone calls can also cover more than the sphere of life and death as in One missed call“Time traveling travel by voicemail.

To return it to Freddie Krueger, there is also a scenario where you think you have a normal conversation – before you find out that you are actually in a nightmare (on Elm Street) and your phone receiver has become a disgusting tongue.

Tangential and now involves technology that is outdated as a terrestrial line, but it is still worth mentioning: when your dial relationship somehow connects you to a sinister other dimension. Issued in 2001, Impulse prey of the concerns of the turnover technology for millennia, but still remains The absolute fearsome ghostly movie for the InternetS

Plus, of course, scary texts are also a lot. Most people prefer to send text messages to talk anyway – and sometimes they can’t talk, such as when a text comes Beyond the grave (One example: Mr. Harigan’s phone).

Weapons

Slasher fans already know where he is going: Michael Myers is terribly stable in 1978. HalloweenBut he is also a maniac who knows how to think on his feet. The high school lind is strangled with a phone cord while talking to his friend Lori, a terrible mirror on a far more playful previous scene that illustrates the next category in this list.

The wrong

Earlier HalloweenLori is on the edge after noticing a certain enclosing figure around Hadnfield – she does not know that Michael is about to go to scatter, but she may feel that she is a bad omen of some kind. When her adventures in grandmothers that Pal Annie calls, Lori is briefly horrified by the random strokes, which is at the other end of the line … until she realizes who actually makes the sound: Annie, with her mouth full of food.

We will also throw a commonly used device for the presence of a phone, buzzing or otherwise unexpectedly, reliable tactics whenever a scare is needed to jump to further enhance the mood.

Without service

It doesn’t matter what year your film is being held; It is probably that if you are a horror hero in a desperate need for a phone-to call fiercely for help, send a warning of life or death, touch the GPS capabilities of a smart-telephone, whatever the case will not work.

For users of the Land-Line cable can be cut off or the jack can be broken and pulled out of the wall. This brings an additional element of terror in history, because it means that anyone who wants to harm you has already been in this room – and has taken preventative measures to prevent you from saving.

The lack of a phone also made many horror characters walk where they have no business, leaving their desire to call a tow truck or other help overshadow common sense. The people of the rear trees you meet in a Wrongly Turn The movie does not require connection with the outside world! In fact, they actively grow a way of life in the opposite direction!

But the latest development in the phones of the horror movie is definitely a “without service” dilemma, which almost instantly became a genre cliché to explain a new modern vulnerability as mobile phones became widespread. What is the benefit to have a computer in your pocket if you can’t connect to the Internet? It’s no Okay. And have fun trying to use your iPhone as a protective shield-on-the-school successor can strike a decent stroke or two in a hand situation.

What are your favorite moments of the phone other than Black Christmas Of course? Share your “Call of Fame” scenes from this very fruitful genre tropa in the comments below. 976-Evil Arrives on Shudder 15 March.

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