Don't Hang Up

I admit it. I love this film. True, it has it's drawbacks...like how in many scenes you hear a lot of camera noise and see the boom mike popping up here and there. Also, this thing is real low-budget. However, the acting is retty good (especially from Susan Bracken) and there are some scenes that are really chilling. The plot deals with a curvaceous blonde named Amanda returning to her hometown to care for her sick grandmother. Years ago her mother was stabbed to death there by an unknown slasher. Once she is back at the house, a freaked out transvestite starts axing random folks and calling Amanda, seducing her and whispering perverse lines over the phone. The music is cheesy but good and there are some really creepy scenes involving dolls and a lot of twisted little touches. The gore is low and the ending is somewhat disappointing, but overall this movie is quite watchable.

A young woman reluctantly returns to her home town to oversee her dying grandmother's final days. While staying in the house where she witnessed her mumsy's murder thirteen years earlier, she finds more than a few secrets from her past have come back to haunt her. I appreciate that this movie has such strange execution. It's structure is very different from the typical low-budget horrors of this era, completely eschewing things like mystery (the killer's identity is obvious from the get-go) and resolution. Plot-wise, it borrows from proto-slashers BLACK Christmas and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT. While it's lesser than both of those films in terms of quality, I did find it undeniably charming, entertaining, and even creepy at times. While the acting in the movie is generally amateur, Susan Bracken is a hoot as the spunky lead who gets to spout some amusing dialogue. She quickly flips the switch from headstrong heroine to full-on basket case and there's not a moment she's on screen where my eyes weren't on her face. It's one of the most memorable horror performances I've watched lately. The movie's biggest downfall is the irritating soap opera-ish theme song in the opening credits that pops up way too often throughout the movie. The freaky dolls in the opening sequence (who also pop up at other points in the movie) sort of make up for it. DON'T OPEN THE DOOR doesn't make much sense and it isn't going to be for everyone, but I found it to be a bizarre and unique viewing experience.

I have a great affection for 70s rednexploitation/hicksploitation films, so my rating for this film may be a bit inflated in comparison to viewers who do not enjoy the likes of "Gator," "Walking Tall," or "Cockfighter." The story follows a young woman who moves into her grandmother's house only to find herself stalked by a madman. A madman with a creepy doll collection, which later figures into why he's stalking her. "Don't Open the Door" is an oddball low budget horror film that's best described an Italian Giallo crossed with "The Town That Dreaded Sundown." It has the low budget drive-in rural east Texas feel of a Charles B. Pierce film, but it also has some hints of Dario Argento and Mario Bava with colorful lighting schemes, inventive camera angles, and a whole lot of extreme close-ups. However, director S.F. Brownrigg is no Argento or Bava (or Pierce, for that matter) and this is certainly no "Bird with the Crystal Plumage." Still, the film does have some effectively creepy moments (including a creepy montage of dolls over the opening credits), but there's no escaping how amateurishly made the film is (and by amateurishly made, I mean badly made).

An eerie low budget shocker that features a lot of the horror/thriller standbys such as creepy phone calls, a young woman returning to a scary childhood home, and lots of frightening mannequins. Performances are stagey and pitched a little too high but it all adds to the charm.

Over the years, various indie horror filmmakers have cult followings, sometimes for the low quality of the films (Ed Wood and Andy Milligan spring to mind). Probably because of the high profiles of these schlockmeisters, low budget horror films from the 1970s seem, almost without exception, to be synonymous with bad movie making.

The movies of S.F. Brownrigg are not part of that group.

Yeah, it's all opinion, but come on, look at his work. Or more specifically, THIS work, lensed in Jefferson TX and utilizing one of the most beautiful Victorian houses I've ever seen. I won't spend much time talking about the story because others have already covered that. A young woman returns to her childhood home (where her mother was murdered 13 years before) to care for her ailing grandmother. She's menaced by an obscene phone caller. That's it.

Wait a minute. That's really just a springboard for something deeper. The plot hardly has any twists (or twists you don't see coming), but look at the various aspects of the production. Brownrigg had a dedicated stock company of actors, who gamely took on whatever role he gave them. The acting runs from competent to excellent--there's nary a bad performance in this, or any other Brownrigg movie. He had a penchance for casting gorgeous female leads, and Susan Bracken is no exception. Looking like a BABY DOLL-era Carroll Baker, Bracken is not only lovely, but feisty as well. You can't take your eyes off her. Larry O'Dwyer may have only appeared in this movie, but he turned in a performance that ranks up there as one of the creepiest in all of Brownrigg's oeuvre. It's both icky and believable; anyone who's lived in a small town knows somebody who fits this profile. Despite being filmed in Texas, there's a deep South vibe to this flick, one that lends itself to a suffocating, insane atmosphere. You can almost feel the humidity and deep, dark secrets festering in the shadows of tradition and heritage. And the house . . . Brownrigg utilized The House of the Seasons, an ornate Victorian confection that, as of this writing, is open as a B & B in Jefferson. The house boasts a cupola decorated by a stained glass dome, a setting that plays prominently in one action sequence. Don't think this film is competently made? Check out the tracking sequence that follows Bracken's character as she moves up the stairwell into the cupola. That's not the kind of thing you see in low-budget 1970s horror, and it's not the kind of shot attempted by a no-talent hack. Brownrigg didn't let budgetary contraints put the kibosh on a creative filmmaking.

And those dolls . . . is there anything creepier? A real historical society museum and doll museum were used as filming locales, and Brownrigg was savvy enough to use some of the dolls in his title sequence. Accompanied by a harpsichord-heavy score, the sequence, a series of pans across the doll's faces on a black background, is suitable unnerving. I was reminded of Tobe Hooper's opening sequence for THE FUNHOUSE (which of course was filmed nearly 10 years later), in which the creepy automatons emerge from sliding panels. Atmosphere is as thick as the air on a mid-summer's Texas day. Good acting, creative camera angles, ingenious use of locals, a looming sense of dread--what more can I say? Way to go, Brownie!