Review: Night Caller

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Internet

Night Caller
Directed by Chad Ferrin
Crappy World Films; Girls and Corpses Films; 123 Go Films
84 minutes, 2022
www.123gofilms.com/night-caller

Back in the 1980s, late night was filled with commercials for things like telephone sex-talks and psychics. Personally, I don’t believe in this form of spirituality (I dated the assistant of a professional psychic a few years ago and saw how it worked). That being said, skepticism is not a hindrance to watch films like this one because, hey, is an unstoppable guy in a hockey mask reality?

Susan Priver

Anyway, now that I have gotten that caveat off my chest, let us delve into this film, which focuses in on Clementine Carter (Susan Priver), an attractive woman of a certain age who has a gift (what a certain writer might call a “shining”). She works on the business end of a telephone psychic hotline in a space she shares with fellow phone psychic and boss Jade Mei (international star Bai Ling). Jade also has visions, so in this story, both are legit psychics.

Bai Ling

At the very start of the film, Clementine gets a call from a stranger (the underappreciated Steve Railsback of 1985’s Lifeforce, among so many other classics) and gives her an obvious fake name (yet, Clementine gives clients her real name!), and she sees him murder someone (comedian Kristi McHugh) in her mind, with a big hunting knife. After, he does just that in the real world, in a nice, gory, practical-effects way, including his signature (we son learn) scalping. Shades of Maniac (1981)! This masked killer wears a black stocking over his face, a long blonde wig, and a toque on top (it is filmed in Los Angeles though, not Canada). There is a bit of sexual ambiguity with the killer, who likes to remove certain female body parts, reminiscent of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs (1991); there is also a couple of nods to Psycho (1960). And like that film, there is a deep psychological element to both the killer and the psychic that both separates them, and makes them somewhat similar, dealing with the dead and the beyond, whether it is “real” or in the mind.

Clementine’s life is a bit of a struggle. She lives with a movie-loving dad, Charles (Robert Miano, who I’ve recently reviewed in Parasites in 2016, by the same director as this film, which I listed as one of my fave releases of the year) and Get Gone in 2019). His room is full of movie posters and VHS tapes. At one point he’s watching Patrick (1978), which is an Easter Egg as it’s a film about someone who kills, psychically. Her late mother, Emily (Kelli Maroney in cameo form, who was in a number of great ‘80s classics, like 1984’s Night of the Comet and 1988’s Chopping Mall), comes to visit her in dreams as a Cassandra, to warn her of danger. Then there is her racist, Ponzi scheming, violent and alcoholic ex-husband, Doug (Michael Cambridge) who is still pestering her and blaming her for his hitting her (“You should have seen it coming, ‘Madame Psychic’”). Will he redeem himself by the end, or will he be another body for the serial killer? I know which side the majority of the audience is probably on.

Robert Miano

One interesting concept is that, for the purposes of this story, fate can be altered, so if someone has a vision, steps can be taken to change it, which leads to unexpected developments rather than having a vision written in stone (or brain, anyway). Playing with this concept is one of the finer points on the story, and also keeps the suspense going, because even if one of the psychics has a vision, which left alone is what would occur, that does not mean it will happen that way.

The most frustrating thing about this film is that Clem (as her father calls her) has a tendency of making some really stupid decisions, such as going all Karen on the coppers (she even says, “Let me talk to your supervisor,”), giving out too much information or going to dangerous places alone (I get pissed at police procedurals where the cop goes in on their own without back-up, as well; it’s a too common theme). You don’t need to be a psychic to see the problems from a mile away. But it’s not just her: why does the Hotline keep answering the killer’s calls, and if they must, how come they don’t record them for the police? There is definitely, however, a nice interplay of what is “real” and events occurring in the mind of one of the seers.

Kelli Maroney

Another fine point with this film is that it is not filled with starlets running around akimbo, but rather mature actors who are more realistic for the roles (though Priver is only 17 years younger than Miano, who plays her dad). Along with Maroney, there are a few other cameos of note, such as Lew Temple (he’s been in a bunch of Rob Zombie’s films, including The Devil’s Rejects in 2005).

Despite the ages of nearly all the main actors being near or above senior citizen level, the photography makes them look good, even with the over-use of close-ups (for some reason, it seems most of Ling’s shots are a foot from her face; so close, in fact, that when she has scenes with Priver, they practically look like conjoined twins to keep them in the same shot.

As much as I kvetched about some aspects of this story, it still managed to keep the tension and interest high throughout, even as I yelled at the screen, “Why are you doing that!?” There is no nudity, but the gore is quite plentiful, top-notch looking, and all practical, by storied indie make-up artist Joe Castro. It all works together well for the story, so it lives up to its promise.

The film is available on a number of digital and cable platforms, including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, iNDemand, and DISH.

IMBD Listing HERE