10 Worst Slasher Movie Villains Since 2000

2. The Stranger (Tommy Flanagan) - When A Stranger Calls

Probably gunning for Halloween€™s sophisticated suspense, the makers of this needless reboot turn the killer into a barely seen psycho who€™s a dab hand at finding hiding places and enjoys taunting people more than killing them. It€™s also one of those movies where the cops say, €œThere€™s nothing we can do€ despite the mounting death toll and the screaming damsel in distress backs herself into a corner, shouting, €œWhat do you want?€ Merry tales of psychotic child-killers don€™t lend themselves to PG-13, so the filmmakers do away with all the nastiness from Fred Walton€™s 1979 original as well as 86 of its 97 minutes, which leaves the opening sequence of a babysitter being informed by police that the malicious calls she€™s been receiving have been coming from€.inside the house! Anyway, the filmmakers€™ attempts to stretch an eleven-minute sequence to feature length means that WASC often feels like a one-act play, with a single character on a single set reacting to shadows, strange noises, the sudden arrival of a stranger etc. This is apt because we€™re watching a two-act movie, whose makers forgot to give it a rousing finale. The scene is set, the €˜tension€™ is ratcheted up by false scares, then ten minutes before the credits roll, the killer puts in an appearance, gets captured by police and that€™s all she wrote.
Contributor

Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'