Grite por Socorro

Man, it's really difficult to make a haunted phone seem scary, eh? Ruggero Deodato tries his best, but I can't help get the feeling that it might have occurred to him halfway through that this might not have been the best idea. However, what you have is the eightiest looking late eighties Italian horror ever. Eighties! Model Jenny arrives in Rome looking for her buddy Marco, but ends up dialling the wrong number and getting through to a haunted answer machine system that lives in an abandoned building left over from Blade Runner. After killing a random cleaner with a telephone cord around the neck, the ghosts now start stalking Jenny all over Rome, via the power of the telephone exchange! Just as well mobile phones weren't widely available by this point or Jenny would have been screwed.

She goes to her apartment (which, strangely, is full of pictures of herself), and also meets neighbour Ramon (I think that was his name) who has the hots for her. She's also got another buddy and there's a photographer called Carmen too. God, it's hard enough to sustain a review of this film, which should give you an idea of what it's like to actually watch it.

The haunted phones basically stalk Jenny around the place, killing of her mates (Carmen is stalked by a phone in a rather unscary sequence), and Deodato starts throwing everything he can at the screen, from a would be rapist being torn to shred by flying phone tokens, to Jenny getting all possessed, wearing lingerie and writhing about in a bath filled with what looked like pish, to William Berger turning up for about thirty seconds before his heart explodes out his chest. Berger, as an aside, seems to be the John Carridine of late eighties Italian horror, turning up in Maya and Spider Labyrinth (both of which are better than this film).

Mind you, all credit must be due to actress Charlotte Lewis. Having to looked scared (or turned on by) a telephone is hard work, as is spouting lines like "The telephone is trying to kill me". The film is helped by being set in Rome too, so you'll get to see the Piazza Navona, Castello Sant' Angelo and the Spanish Steps as Jenny goes around being told not to use phones and then using phones. Ruggero's no Bruno Mattei when it comes to directing either, so it's all done rather well…except it's about a haunted phone.

In fact, now that I remember, Ruggero made a film about a haunted washing machine too, so maybe he thought it was a good idea? This one was okay but most of the grade here comes from the high cheese factor.

I don't get the overwhelming negativity directed at this film. It's quite entertaining and has an unique supernatural premise, with lots of traditional giallo atmosphere thrown in. People die in very giallo like ways. And Charlotte Lewis' energetic performance in lingerie for the last half hour makes up for any disappointment you might feel about the lack of nude scenes.

My review was written in October 1989 after watching the film on Prism video cassette.

Despite its absurd premise, "Dial: Help" emerges as an above-average Italian horror thriller, imported direct to U. S. video stores.

Charlotte Lewis, the mega-voluptuous co-star of "Pirates" and "The Golden Child:, is cast against type as a vulnerable British heroine whose innocent dialing of a wrong number sets off a series of supernatural murders.

It seems (rather preposterously) that she's made contact with a long-gone phone romance service whose pent-up energy ("of love and hate", per psychic expert William Berger) finds a mystical outlet through the phone lines. She's plagued by weird voices; the phone kills her tropical fish and her friends are murdered by an invisible presence. Pic climaxes with Lewis retracing her steps and finding the secret room that unlocks the mystery.

Helmer Ruggero Deodatao again demonstrates he's nar the head of the class in making American-style films in Rome, with an excellent direct English soundtrack. Pic is something of a challenge for fidgety video fans, in that star Lewis doesn't really get down and boogie until the final reel; her prudish performance up until that point is definitely misleading.

Finale, however, is worth waiting for, as Deodato combines voyeurism and bondage motifs memorably in a kinky payoff for which Lewis takes on the idealized look of a John Willie adult cartoon character. Pic definitely is a showcase for the exotic star, whose physical attributes could well win her an extended Italian career parallel to current reigning local star Serena Grandi.

Unidentified supporting cast is good and all tech credits are solid.

Jenny Cooper (Charlotte Lewis), a beautiful English model living in Italy, dials a wrong number, connecting to a long-unmanned hotline for the lonely and suicidal; in doing so, she unleashes a reservoir of negative energy that follows her via the telephone and kills those around her.

As the above synopsis suggests, Dial: Help is a decidedly silly '80s Italian horror, full of ridiculous death scenes in which victims are choked by telephone cords (one woman is literally hanging on the telephone!), struck by coins ejected from a payphone, electrocuted by switchboard, and killed by exploding pacemaker. Even the fish in Jenny's aquarium aren't safe, the telephone in her apartment emitted a high pitched tone that sends them all floating to the surface.

Director Ruggero Deodato (of Cannibal Holocaust infamy) handles the craziness with style, using wind machines, lots of coloured light, an excess of smoke and plenty of neon (there is even one of those horrible '80s neon phones that tries to zap Jenny in the bath), but realising just how daft and consequently unscary the film's premise is, he resorts to getting Lewis into some sexy lingerie for the final act. Not that I'm complaining, of course: Lewis in black basque, stockings and suspenders just about makes up for her horrible wooden performance.

4.5 out of 10, which I might have rounded up to 5 if the character playing the jazz flute had died.

What a sales gimmick! This is certainly not an erotic thriller. There is a fraction of a second nipple flash at best, and this is while….being seduced by….her possessed TELEPHONE! She spends the entire movie running around screaming and terrified by eerie sounds on possessed telephones around the city. Through the stupid chaos of telephone cords attacking people, fish dying from telephone squeals, and quarters shot out of a pay phone killing a guy, this movie should have been placed in the low budget horror section. It doesn't earn the title thriller or erotic in the least! For a better movie with Charlotte Lewis see Bare Essentials instead.