Sparing the punk named Waldo’s life, I grilled over what sinister plan the Goose Lord had in store for the citizens of downtown Orlando. 

“Curator, he plans to get all the children in town hooked on Dance Fever,” he said, still crying with humble gratitude. “Once the kids are hooked, he’ll have an army of addicts ready to do his bidding for their next fix.”

“Where is the Goose Lord now?” I asked with steadfast resolve. 

“I don’t know,” Waldo said. — To be continued.

Tonight’s movie is 1979’s When a Stranger Calls from director Fred Walton. This was an attempt to adapt the famous urban legend about a babysitter receiving phone calls from a maniac telling her to check on the children. Fed up, the babysitter calls the police who inform that all they can do is trace the origin of the phone call the next he calls. She keeps the creeper on the phone long enough for the police to trace the call. The police call her back and warn her that the calls are coming from inside the house. The maniac is in the house! He’s murdered the children and the babysitter will be next!

Yeah, that’s basically the beginning of this movie. You have Carol Kane as Jill Johnson, a babysitter tasked with babysitting two children that are down with the flu while the parents go  to dinner and a movie. The kids have the flu and they’re fast asleep so this should be an easy gig if not for that pesky maniac calling her every two minutes. The scenario plays out much as you’d expect, but when Jill attempts to flee from the house, she sees Charles Durning standing right there and screams. I would probably scream if I opened my front door and saw Charles Durning standing there.

I hope you like Charles Durning because this becomes his movie from here on out. He plays John Clifford, a former police officer turned private investigator. I guess the horrific murder of those children forced him to resign from the force. Anyway, we find out that the maniac that murdered the children was a British sailor named Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley). The jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity and sent him away to an asylum where the doctors couldn’t make heads or tails of his psychosis. And then he escapes seven years later and Clifford is hired by the family of the murdered children to track down Duncan and kill him.

Duncan is now living it up in Los Angeles by going to a local dive bar and chatting up a woman named Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst) who keeps giving him the brush off. Did you know Colleen Dewhurst was a respected actress best known for her performances in Eugene O’Neill plays? Anyway, Duncan won’t leave her alone so one of the regulars beats the crap out of him and shoves him out the door. Later on, Duncan shows up at Tracy’s apartment and asks her out and she says she’ll meet him tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, a sweaty Clifford is running all over the city trying to find Duncan’s whereabouts. I have to say that this Duncan doesn’t remind me of the maniac that was terrorizing Jill Johnson at the beginning of the movie. It feels like a second movie got tacked on to a rather tepid retelling of the babysitter story. Skip this one. Maybe watch License to Drive starring Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. It also stars Carol Kane.

 Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, episode 597, episode 598, and episode 599) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.