DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE (1980)
The late, great Nicholas Worth chews up the scenery as Kirk Smith, a deranged Vietnam vet with a voracious appetite for weight lifting and strangulation. Kirk spends his days working as a sleazy photographer, prowling the streets of Los Angeles looking for attractive young women. When night falls the psycho strangler violently breaks into the homes of women that live alone and has his way with them. He enjoys burning them with candle wax, biting their breasts, and violating their every orifice. Kirk favors an unusual Vietnamese method of strangulation: wrapping a large gold coin in nylon and using it as a tourniquet to slowly squeeze the life from his lingerie clad victims.
Not content with the brutal acts of rape, mutilation, and strangulation, Kirk also has a fetish for leaving his victims’ dead bodies in lurid positions in public places. This final outrage is a slap in the face to the terrified citizens, and to the dumbfounded police. The ego maniacal serial killer also enjoys calling in to a local radio show to taunt the female psychologist host – Lindsay Gale, by boasting of his demented crimes. A police detective investigating the case becomes romantically involved with Lindsay, just as Kirk also decides to to set his sights on her. This love triangle quickly turns deadly, because no matter how hard Lindsay tries to stay alive – the murderer is always just a phone call away.
“Don’t Answer The Phone” is equal parts sleazy/disturbing/inept/hilarious. The sweaty psycho killer is fantastic and the numerous scenes of him in action are brutal and convincing stuff. Nicholas Worth does a great job playing an emotionally disturbed character, wildly fluctuating from angry to sobbing – often within the same scene. The movie then takes a turn for sheer unintentional hilarity whenever it features the bumbling police officers that are investigating the case. The comedic value is great enough that Rhino Home Video once released this film (in a heavily edited form) on dvd.
Don’t mistake “Don’t Answer The Phone” for pure schlock though, as it packs a quite a punch in the vein of other crude, yet effective flicks like “Maniac” and “Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer.” The original storyline was based on the Michael Curtis novel “Nightline,” which was a fictionalized account of the notorious “Hillside Strangler” case. The corpses of the female victims being left in lurid, open legged display by the killer and the formation of a “strangler task force” are both taken directly from the real case.
Fans of serial killer flicks, police thrillers, brutal home invasion kills, and occasional moments of odd, out of place cheesy comedy will no doubt appreciate this. BCI released a beautiful looking, 100% uncut dvd release of “Don’t Answer The Phone” that includes goodies like a commentary track with director Robert Hammer (no relation), an interview with Nicholas Worth, a stills gallery, and a nifty trailer reel featuring ads for a few of Crown International’s classic genre flicks.
