Starkstrom

This movie is known under the title "Bells" in my country. Bells is a exciting and unusual thriller about a killer who kills people with the help of the phone (he sends some deadly sounds through the phone). The movie is made with skill and have great & convincing actors who really takes the job serious. The plot is good and makes you feel the tension in the film. Recommended

I give it 8 out of 10

Given the title, you would expect 'Murder by Phone' to be a silly eighties slasher style flick...and that's actually more or less what it is. The most notable thing about this film is definitely the killer's modus operandi. Most slashers simply feature some guy with a knife, but the killer in this film has decided to go a step further than that and had developed a way to use an ordinary telephone as a murder weapon! Obviously, the whole thing comes off as being more than a little bit silly, but the way that the murders are carried out is amusing enough. The plot centres on these murders and takes the form of an investigative thriller, as our hero, Nat Bridger, begins looking into the death of one of his students. The film is never really all that interesting, but at least it's not boring and there's usually another murder scene just around the corner anyway; though unfortunately, they are pretty much the same. Director Michael Anderson does manage some fairly good moments of suspense, a couple of major characters have close calls (no pun intended) when speaking on the phone and there are various other bits and bobs to keep us interested. I can't say that this is a brilliant film, but it's at least worth a look.

Alternatively known as Bells, here's an entertaining chiller with two gooder actors for a film that's still a good solid drama/thriller. Certainly something different here, we have a disgruntled nut who used to work for the phone company, taking people out at random, some he personally knows, by upping the voltage so high, their body melts, their ears explode, and are sent flying backwards whether on subways, or from high rise buildings. Richard Chamberlain, of all people, is a professor, who investigates the killings, when one of his best students, is a victim (the first one on the subway). While bedding architect (Sara Botsford- Rats) he teams up with a cop who he first bangs heads with, on the account of his no caring attitude, they try to flush out the killer, who's doing his business from a small electricity house, which is also his abode. John Houseman, an old lecturer and close friend of Chamberlain, has something to hide here, too, which I thought was a good shock point (pardon the expression). I did like the cop in this film, a Frederick Forest type guy, I found a hoot, if the whole film. The death scenes are classics, and we do question if we could really kill someone by upping the amps so high. How they set the killer up, is classic, as is the last call Richard Chamberlain takes, that he shouldn't of. On the whole, Bells is fun viewing for the horror/thriller viewer, though I don't think it will turn you off answering your next call.

"Bells" looks like an average and routine 80's slasher but you should know to expect a little bit extra from the talented director of "Logan's Run"; Michael Anderson. And indeed, only a couple of minutes into the film and already it turned out that my impressions and expectations towards this film were entirely wrong and I was in for a pleasant surprise. "Bells" isn't a teen slasher movie at all (despite the VHS cover art and the cheesy sounding alternate title "Murder by Phone") but a fairly well plotted thriller that even shows the ambition to question the reliability of gigantic enterprises and refer to government conspiracies. How many "Friday the 13th" rip-offs can righteously claim to have done that? Richard Chamberlain stars as university professor and environmentalist Nat Bridger who privately investigates the bizarre death of one of his former students. The poor girl turns out to be the first victim of a maniac who developed a method to kill people over the phone (!) by sending an extremely high level of voltage through the speaker. Don't ask me to explain the technical aspects, but the victims start to shake and bleed from eyes & ears before getting catapulted in the air by an explosion! Not exactly tasteful but original and very entertaining to look at! This killing modus operandi as well as the further development of the "whodunit" storyline is often very implausible and silly, but you easily look past these flaws simply because the pace is exciting and the suspense-sequences are extremely intense. The film's only real disadvantage is that the scenery has severely dated by now and that some of the observations in the script turned out very exaggerated (for example, the phone company tour guide's estimation that there will be 1.4 trillion phones by the year 2000). Perhaps, this even is a rare example of a horror film that would actually profit from a remake! I'm convinced that some of the nowadays scriptwriters can come up with nifty ideas when re-working this premise into a story that revolves on mobile phones, teleconference attributes or web cams. Class actor Chamberlain is adequate in the lead, but the best performances are delivered by Sara Botsford as his love-interest and Gary Reineke as the obnoxious police detective.

On paper this sounds pretty uninspiring, but 'Bells' turns out to be an ingenious idea well-executed (a bit like Didier Grousset's 'Kamikaze' [1986] in reverse), that reunites the director and composer of 'The Quiller Memorandum'.

The script vaguely recalls 'Quatermass 2', is lively, quite witty in places and generous to the supporting characters (Gary Reineke, in particular, is visibly enjoying himself as the police lieutenant, who gets to develop as the film progresses), the Toronto locations are well used, and it all builds up to a satisfyingly explosive climax. One can nit-pick - Richard Chamberlain gets a lot of lucky breaks looking for information - but it certainly makes you pay attention every time yet another 'phone rings; did every single phone in Toronto - even the Mickey Mouse ones - have exactly the same ring tone in 1980, by the way?