''Don't Answer the Phone!'' is a 1980 American

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

co-written and directed by Robert Hammer. While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the

Obscene Publications Act 1959 The Obscene Publications Act 1959 ( 7 & 8 Eliz. 2. c. 66) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament, which significantly reformed the law related to obscenity in England and Wales. Before the passage of the Act, the law on publis ...

during the

video nasty ''Video nasty'' is a colloquial term popularised by the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVALA) in the United Kingdom to refer to a number of films, typically low-budget horror or exploitation films, distributed on video cassette ...

panic.

Plot

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

vet, amateur bodybuilder, and talented porno-photographer Kirk Smith is a crazed killer who stalks the streets of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, strangles young women in lurid fashion, and sexually abuses their dead bodies. The film opens with Smith killing a nurse before stripping her corpse. Between murders, he carries out twisted religious ceremonies and has imaginary conversations with his dead father while weeping. He repeatedly contacts Dr. Lindsay Gale, a psychologist with a radio show as well as a private therapy practice. He calls her show, speaking with an assumed Spanish accent and complaining of chronic headaches and blackouts. He follows one of Dr. Gale's female patients, Carol, home from her therapy session, and tortures her to death. He also murders a hooker while on the phone to Dr. Gale's show, forcing Dr. Gale to listen to the victim's cries. Two goofy detectives named Hatcher and McCabe are charged with the task of tracking him down. When McCabe first questions Dr. Gale, his manner is brusque and unsympathetic. She develops a strong dislike for him. However, he later prevents one of her patients from committing

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

, after which Dr. Gale becomes fond of McCabe and they have a brief love affair. Hatcher and McCabe visit a whore-and-drug-house in search of a witness who has seen the strangler leaving the scene of one of his murders, but the witness, a pimp and drug dealer, attacks them and they shoot him to death without being able to question him. Kirk Smith is interrupted at the scene of his next murder by the victim's landlady, and he leaves a portfolio of photographs behind as he flees the scene. Hatcher and McCabe show the photographs to the local pornography dealer Sam Gluckman; he identifies them as the work of Kirk Smith, who has provided him with high-quality pornographic pictures in the past. When the detectives search Smith's apartment, they find his pictures of Dr. Gale and realize that he has selected her to be his next victim. During this time, Smith invades Dr. Gale's home, ties her up, and terrorizes her for hours, and ranting about his childhood. McCabe goes to Dr. Gale's home just in time to rescue her. At the end of a protracted struggle, McCabe shoots Smith many times, including several times in the back. Kirk stumbles towards a pool and expires as he plunges in. The film ends with a shot of Smith's bullet-ridden floating body as McCabe snarls, "Adios, creep!"

Cast

* James Westmoreland as Lt. Chris McCabe * Ben Frank as Sgt Hatcher * Flo Lawrence as Dr Lindsay Gale (credited as "Flo Gerrish") *

Nicholas Worth Nicholas Worth (September 4, 1937 – May 7, 2007) was an American character actor who appeared on film, on TV, and in video games. Early years Worth was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 4, 1937. He served for three years in the a ...

as Kirk Smith * Denise Galik as Lisa * Stan Haze as Adkins * Gary Allen as John Feldon * Michael D. Castle as Lab Man *

Pamela Jean Bryant Pamela Jean Bryant (February 8, 1959 – December 4, 2010) was an American model and actress. She was ''Playboy'' magazine's Playmate of the Month for its April 1978 issue. Her centerfold was photographed by Richard Fegley. Bryant first appeare ...

as Sue Ellen * Chris Wallace as

Psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance; or who performs acts that a ...

* Dale Kalberg as Nurse * Mike Levine as Gary Markov *

Chuck Mitchell Charles Thomas Mitchell (November 28, 1927 – June 22, 1992) was an American actor, singer and entertainer. He is known for his role as "Porky" in the 1981 movie '' Porky's'' and its 1985 sequel '' Porky's Revenge!'' Career Mitchell is ...

as Sam Gluckman * Victor Mohica as Ventura * Susanne Severeid as Hooker * Paula Warner as Carol * Gail Jensen as Joyce * Joyce Ann Jodan as Roommate * Corinne Cook as Rikki *

Don Lake Donald Lake (born November 26, 1956) is a Canadian actor, writer, and television producer. He is frequently cast by director Christopher Guest, and is also a close friend and frequent collaborator of Bonnie Hunt. He had a role in '' The Bonnie ...

as Man in Plastic

Production

The film was shot in and around

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. Robert Hammer drew inspiration from a wave of murders by strangulation that occurred in 1978 in Los Angeles; the film

working title A working title is a preliminary name for a product or project. The usage is especially common in film and TV, gaming, music and publishing. It is often styled in trade publications as (wt) and is synonymous with production title and tentative ...

was ''Hollywood Strangler''.

Censorship

When first released on DVD by Rhino Entertainment in 2001, an edited for television print was used, which had been subject to heavy edits—over 9 minutes were edited from the film. The uncensored, theatrical release version was released by BCI Eclipse on DVD in October 2006.Don't Answer the Phone - DVD Drive In
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Soundtrack

The score was composed by Byron Allred.

Release

Crown International Pictures Crown International Pictures (CIP) was an independent film studio and distribution company formed in 1959 by Newton P. Jacobs. History Jacobs was a branch head of RKO Pictures until 1947, when he formed Favorite Films, an organization which relea ...

released the film on February 29, 1980. By the end of that year the film had accrued

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

1,750,000 in distributors' domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals, making it the year's 105th biggest earner.Gebert, Michael. ''The Encyclopedia of Movie Awards'' (listing of 'Box Office (Domestic Rentals)' for 1980, taken from ''Variety'' magazine), pg. 355, St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1996. . "Rentals" refers to the distributor/studio's share of the

box office A box office or ticket office is a place where ticket (admission), tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a Wicket gate, wicket. ...

gross, which, according to Gebert, is roughly half of the money generated by ticket sales. The VHS was released in the United States on 28 February 1982 by

Media Home Entertainment Media Home Entertainment Inc. was a home video company headquartered in Culver City, California, originally established in 1978 by filmmaker Charles Band. Media Home Entertainment also distributed video product under additional labels — The N ...

. The DVD was released in 2002 by Rhino Home Video and re-released by BCI Eclipse on 10 October 2006. The film was restored and released on DVD and

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

Vinegar Syndrome Vinegar Syndrome is an American home video distribution company which specializes in "protecting and preserving genre films". The company was founded in 2012 in Bridgeport, Connecticut by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson, who created it to restore ...

in January 2017.

Reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...

in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' felt the film was "a nasty, dimly executed exploitation movie about a psychopathic fellow who roams around Los Angeles strangling women with stockings and then mutilating their bodies. The performances are terrible, as are the writing and the direction…" Paul Taylor in '' Time Out'' magazine called it "a routinely mindless sickie".Taylor, Paul. Review from ''Time Out'' magazine reprinted in ''The Time Out Film Guide'', Second Edition, pg. 191, edited by

Tom Milne Tom Milne (2 April 1926 – 14 December 2005) was a British film critic. See also After war service, he studied English and French at Aberdeen University and later at the Sorbonne. Interested in the theatre too, he wrote for the magazine ...

, Penguin Books, 1991. Years after its initial release, the film's mainstream critical reputation continues to be abysmal. Michael Weldon, in '' The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film'', noted, "if you like ''really'' sick films, see this one...The ads made it look like another baby-sitter-in-distress movie, but it's in a class by itself".Weldon, Michael. The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, pg. 199 - 200, Ballantine Books, 1983. Phil Hardy's '' The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror'' described the film as "yet another woman-in-jeopardy movie...the covert suggestion that the female victims have 'asked for it' is particularly objectionable".Hardy, Phil (editor). ''The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror'', Aurum Press, 1984. Reprinted as ''The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Horror'', Overlook Press, 1995, However, the review further observed that Nicholas Worth's performance as the lunatic killer was "so outrageously over-the-top, and so bizarrely eccentric as to be horribly fascinating and the final line of 'Adios, creep', delivered over a shot of Worth's corpse floating in a swimming pool, is curiously resonant".

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

gave the film a BOMB rating, stating that it was another psychopathic

veteran killer film, warning readers to not watch the film. The websites

Letterboxd Letterboxd ( ) is an online social cataloging service for film founded (partially with investment company Tiny since 2023) and owned by Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in 2011, and headquartered in New Zealand. Members can rate and review ...

, The Grindhouse Database and The Spinning Image list this movie as belonging to the vetsploitation subgenre.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Don't Answer The Phone 1980 films 1980 horror films 1980 independent films 1980s mystery films 1980s psychological horror films 1980s slasher films American horror thriller films American independent films American mystery films American psychological horror films American serial killer films American slasher films Crown International Pictures films Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in Los Angeles Films about telephony Troma Entertainment films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films Video nasties English-language horror films English-language independent films English-language mystery films