10 Horror Movie Trailers Scarier Than The Actual Film

10. When a Stranger Calls (1979)

The original When a Stranger Calls has one of the most masterfully unsettling horror openings of all time.

It centers on good-natured babysitter Jill Johnson as she’s harassed by a mysterious caller – later revealed to be Curt Duncan – who keeps asking, “Have you checked the children?” Soon, the police tell her that the calls are “coming from inside the house” and that said caller killed the kids she's supposed to protect.

Clearly, it was smart for the official trailer to showcase an abridged version of this scene alongside an ominous score, foreboding narration, and a couple of positive pull quotes lifted from professional reviews.

As it turns out, though, the preview was also cunningly constructed because it avoided exposing how underwhelmingly monotonous When a Stranger Calls becomes as soon as the petrifying prologue is over.

In fact, the bulk of the movie abandons the unnerving tone and narrative aftermath of Jill’s traumatizing night to focus on two other people – citizen Tracy Fuller and detective John Clifford – hunting Duncan after he escapes from a mental health facility. It’s basically a disinteresting police investigation for the entire middle hour, with Duncan’s prior threateningness being swapped for sympathetic timidness.

Eventually, Jill and Duncan get the confrontation viewers have been waiting for, and the film’s initial edginess returns. Unfortunately, it’s too little, too late.