Eu Vi que Foi Você

I saw this movie when I was about 11 or 12 and I remember it to this day. (I am almost 40.)It scared the wits out of me and I certainly never wanted to make prank phone calls after that! I would love to see it again and share it with my kids. This a great B classic that not many people have seen.

...which is a no-budget thriller.

Two teenage girls (Sara Lane, Andi Garrett) make prank phone calls saying the title line. By mistake they call Steve Marak (John Ireland) who's just killed his wife. Then things get out of control.

One of William Castle's low budget horror films that he churned out in the 1960s. None of them are that good but this is definitely one of the better ones. It's photographed in moody black & white and director Castle makes excellent use of darkness (notice all the darkness above the girls when they make the calls) and shadows and fog (which inexplicably shows up at the end). There's also a very vicious shower stabbing in the first 20 minutes with shots obviously imitating "Psycho". There are also quite a few good moments calculated to make you jump.

On the debit side--there's not enough story even for 83 minutes; Joan Crawford (dressed to the 9s for no reason) is wasted as a next-door neighbor; Ireland is stone-faced throughout; Lane and Garrett are horrible actresses (and, tellingly, never made another movie) and the script has lines that no teenager would utter.

Still, there are worse ways to kill 90 minutes and the jolts in this film do work. Worth seeing if you're a horror fan.

Yes, good old William Castle is on the loose again, with a low budget and a creepy plot...and Joan Crawford, whose salary probably used up most of Castle's available cash.

You know you're in trouble from the first few scenes, with corny eyeball-shaped framing devices, then the intrusion of Van Alexander's completely out-of-place bouncy score, with its recurring principal theme of "Ninny nanny noo-noo." (Most of his credits are for 60s sitcoms, and it shows.) Then we're treated to exteriors of the Mannering house which are nothing more than Thomas Kincade- style paintings. (Virtually the whole film was shot on a sound stage, except for some rear projections.)

The plot itself is clichéd, but decently "executed." The casting is a problem, with Joan Crawford at age 60 trying to be the hypotenuse in a love triangle between 50-year-old John Ireland and some young bimbo (or we should say, ex-bimbo). Not much choice there. The two teenage girls are straight out of 60s sitcom land, and the younger sister joins the ranks of "most annoying child actors." There are some tense moments, including a ripoff of the shower scene from "Psycho" (except with a naked man instead of Janet Leigh).

And since we're already knee-deep in 60s sitcoms with the trite score and giggly teenaged actors, we're given an ending that would have been right in place on Dobie Gillis or the Patty Duke Show. Except with a dead body.

Kids left alone in the house inadvertently play a phone prank on psychopath John Ireland, who has just murdered his trampy Mrs. in the shower! Whenever you see a biography of Joan Crawford's career, this title usually gets left out. True, she has a minor role in it (playing Ireland's neighbor, hoping to blackmail him into marriage), however it's one of the better movies she was involved in after "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" William Castle did a good job as producer/director of this story, and the two teenage girls are very appealing and natural. The movie builds some credible suspense (underlined with a jokey tone) and has interesting visual tricks and groovy music. Avoid the awful, too-literal 1988 TV-remake. **1/2 from ****

William Castle made a career out of monster and ghost stories, so even though the synopsis on my TV said this was a departure about teenage girls involved with murder I still expected the same kind of B-movie action. In truth though it was actually a pretty decent thriller.

A sixteen year old girl and her little sister who live in a secluded home a few miles away from anybody get the house to themselves for a night. The older girl invites her friend over for dinner and the three of them eventually resort to prank calling random people from the phone book to entertain themselves. Unfortunately for them they make the mistake of calling a man who's just committed murder and jokingly tell him, "I know what you did, and I know who you are." The man naturally assumes the voice on the line is serious and there is a witness out there who saw him disposing of his girlfriend's body. A variety of twists and intertwining characters eventually put the guilty man in the same room as our innocent kids.

The plot relies heavily on coincidence to stitch everything together and a major plot point hinges on an extremely stupid decision by our protagonists but in spite of it all, it still manages to build a lot of tension towards it's climax which although brief is handled very effectively. It also helps that this secluded home of there's is surrounded by forestry and continually deepening shadows as the night wares on with fog that's barely visible outside the moonlight, making for a very creepy and cool atmosphere. The acting is pretty good too, even our teenage heroes seem to exercise some decent chops all things considered. Good fun and good thrills.