Don't Hang Up

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).

Not quite as good a low budget effort as Mr Brownrigg's earlier, 'Don't look In The Basement' but still well worth catching. This starts rather slow and predictably but soon develops into a real creepy affair with an excellent central performance from Susan Bracken as she spends the entire movie fending off the crazies. Whilst she may not be surrounded by folks quite as crazy as in the earlier film none of them are the sort you would wish to get too close to and as the film progresses a most unpleasant tone begins to permeate the picture. Bracken does plenty of wide eyed screaming, particularly as she really begins to lose it towards the end and with her red outfit and the dark shadows and is certainly a sight to be seen.

In Director S.F. Brownrigg's DON'T HANG UP, Amanda Post (Susan Bracken) returns to her ailing grandmother's house, 13 years after her mother was murdered there. Amanda finds her grandmother near death, and a group of unsavory townsfolk seemingly up to no good.

It's not long before she starts receiving some disturbing phone calls, while someone lurks about the place, watching her through cracks and holes in the walls. Murder abounds as the killer's identity and motives are slowly revealed.

While not the best horror movie ever made, it's enjoyable enough, and has an unusual / unexpected twist at the end. It's also fun to watch for actors from other Brownrigg movies, such as DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT...

The film is worth watching for the extremely unsettling phone calls the protagonist gets while in her grandmothers big house alone... That and a general creepy mood and giallo like filming makes this a nice old horror. There's some killing but it's not over the top.

Acting is also .. not bad actually, the girl is headstrong and the judge has a menacing persona fitting the film, the museum curators face has a plasticity that makes his real emotions eerily unpredictable, well done sir

Plot vise this dosent make much sense but I can't say much without spoiling things, I don't think that matters as much as you might think though, crazy people dont act rationally do they.

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.