10 Biggest Plot-Changing Movie Phone Calls

It's rare you hear a good argument in favour of genocide, and Tommy Lee Wallace's standalone sequel to John Carpenter's film easily comes up with the most ludicrous: punking the kids.

It seems Conal Cochran, CEO and founder of Silver Shamrock Novelty company, is an alleged warlock (it's never clarified) who despises what children have done to the festival of Samhain. They've turned it into a mockery. In order to get them to pay their proper respect, he has implanted his top-selling Halloween masks with pieces of Stonehenge that will activate and murder when the "giveaway" plays at 9 p.m. Santa Mira time (it's worth noting that Santa Mira, California is also the fictional location of the town in Invasion of the Body Snatchers - a film Wallace and Carpenter inexplicably try and borrow from).

It's up to Dr. Daniel Challis, a local physician with a severe drinking problem that's never addressed, to warn the public before the "giveaway" airs. Challis manages to escape Cochran's grasp and make it to a gas station, where he gets on the phone to explain the situation.

Astonishingly, networks around the country start to shut down, putting a stop to the potential murder of millions of children.

But one network refuses to stop airing the ad, and the film ends with Challis screaming a plea to shut it down. Given the current pandemic and the absurd conspiracy theories and protests surrounding orders of protection, one can only wonder what network just wouldn't pull its advertisers.