Waste of time

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

best movie i've ever seen.

The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

When I saw the Crown International Pictures logo, I expected the worst. But to my surprise, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE! wasn't bad. In fact, it's the best Crown International feature I've ever seen--though that isn't saying much for the studio that foisted THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN on us.It's the story of two police detectives tracking down a serial killer who can only ejaculate as he strangles a woman to death. The killer becomes obsessed with a radio talk-show psychologist, which leads to his downfall. Nicholas Worth, who played the killer, turned in a highly convincing portrayal of an unhinged man with severe PTSD--over both childhood trauma and combat in Vietnam. I also liked James Westmoreland as Detective Chris McCabe, the lead officer in the investigation, and Flo Gerrish as the beleaguered Dr. Lindsay Gale.By today's standards, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE! is rife with sexism and misogyny. But this was 1980, and I try not to judge the past by latter-day standards.

Writer / producer / director Robert Hammer delivers the sleaze in a big way in this, his sole fictional feature credit. Inspired by the real-life Hillside Strangler murders, it stars James Westmoreland ("Stacey") and Ben Frank ("Death Wish II") as two police detectives searching for a maniacal rapist-murderer, played to the hilt by the late, great character actor Nicholas Worth. Worth plays Kirk Smith, a photographer by trade who in between his depraved killings likes to phone a radio psychologist named Lindsay Gale (Flo Gerrish). Filmed largely guerrilla style in approximately 18 days, "Don't Answer the Phone" gets off to a great start; we're introduced to Smith right away, and then witness him knocking off a young nurse. The cast features some exquisitely sexy young ladies, including Playboy Playmate Pamela Jean Bryant, Susanne Severeid ("Van Nuys Blvd."), actress / composer Gail Jensen (writer of the theme to 'The Fall Guy'), Paula Warner, and Dale Kalberg. Appreciably, Hammer makes sure these ladies are unclothed or partially unclothed at some point. Trash film fans will also note the films' rather mean-spirited tone. Still, this wouldn't be nearly as effective as it is were it not for Worth, who's absolutely priceless, improvising some amazing monologues and coming up with the whole "Ramon" routine on his own. Westmoreland is a self-assured, macho lead and Frank very affable as his sidekick. The supporting cast has other recognizable actors such as Denise Galik ("Humanoids from the Deep"), Stan Haze ("Alligator"), Gary Allen ("Alice Sweet Alice"), and Chris Wallace ("New Year's Evil"); co-writer Michael Castle has a funny comedy relief role as an obnoxious lab man, and be sure to look out for the appearances by Don Lake as the man in plastic and Chuck "Porky" Mitchell as a pornographer. With a hilarious electronic score by Byron Allred of the Steve Miller Band on the soundtrack, this may play out with an accent on the sick and the sordid, but it does take the time out for some humour, such as the commotion that erupts in the massage parlour. The finale is enjoyably brutal stuff and culminates in what is far and away the best line in the whole thing. Overall, it's pretty enjoyable. Eight out of 10.

So i was up last night at some ungodly hour and this flick comes on straight out of 1980 about a big, huge guy who strangles the life out of sexy woman in L.A. It's called "Don't answer the Phone" and it stands out at being violent, sexy, and scary. This film caught my eye for two reasons, first off the killer is wearing an Airborne/paratrooper jacket in the movie, which seems to fit extremely well with a "Ed Parker" Kempo Karate patch on the right shoulder. Second, the flesh. Every five minutes some Extreme hottie gets squeezed to dirt, its a ninety minute flesh parade of death and desire dealt out in a lethal, one-sided manner. There's almost no blood to be seen, just lots of strangulation and domination. It's slightly reminiscent of "Maniac" the classic that catapulted Joe Spinell to fame for his role as the bloodthirsty woman butcher. There both excellent pieces of cinema that pushed the genre into cold, tension filled depths, AND they both came out the same year. I'm starting to love Hollywood b-genre, bit actors. Nicholas Worth, Brion Johnson, Joe Spinell and Robert Z'dar round out some of my favorites in this weird, forgotten genre. Ten stars.

Remember the deliberately cheesy slasher movie parody that comprises the first five minutes of Brian DePalma's "Blow Out?" The libidinous airheads, the wheezing psycho, the wretched synthesizer score? Well, "Don't Answer the Phone" is the real thing. Seriously. For all I know DePalma actually had this movie in mind when he made "Blow Out," which hit theaters less than a year afterward.As a movie, there's not much to recommend. The plot is by the numbers: sicko breaking into homes killing women, leaving clues with a talk show host, pursued by police so over-the-top retarded that they kill the only witness they have, so far, to the crimes. The script is abysmal. The lead characters are not remotely likable or realistic. The top cop is a guy so obnoxious, stone-faced, and stupid that you are actually rooting for the psycho to beat the hell out of him in the climax. The actor playing him, James Westmoreland, doesn't seem to get the joke --- it's one of the most wooden monotone performances I've ever seen. I've heard some say Flo Gerrish is redeemable in the shrink role...sorry, I've seen better hand-wringing in C-grade soaps.Then...there's the late Nicholas Worth who always manages to bring something extra to nearly every role he's in...which is usually always a beefy menacing henchmen for someone or other. He, too, bears with some of the triteness of the script: the religious "wacko" overtones, the mix of maniacal sobbing and raging. But he, unlike the rest of the clueless droolers he's sharing the screen with, actually strikes a nerve, particularly in the murder scenes.So what's different about these scenes, you may ask, from all the assault scenes you've seen before? Well, Worth just seems to really be embodying this role, to the point that it's uncomfortable to watch. He possesses this character's sadism to a point where you wonder how he could really separate fantasy from reality. He's a very good method actor. At the start of the picture, his most chilling bullying is verbal, but near the end of the film, in the murder of the two roommates, his hatred is palpable. And the end of the film, where he faces off with Gerrish, brings an energy and intensity with it that is frankly one of the most frightening displays of rage I've ever seen on film.It's Worth alone that saves this dismal little drive-in dud. He elevates this movie to a level of disturbing that it doesn't remotely have the right to earn.