Synopsis
A madman pushes a button and kills by phone. Would you answer?
A disgruntled phone company employee develops a device whereby those answering a phone can be murdered, and it's up to Nat Bridger to stop the killer.
1982 Directed by Michael Anderson
A disgruntled phone company employee develops a device whereby those answering a phone can be murdered, and it's up to Nat Bridger to stop the killer.
Bells, The Calling, Hell's Bells, Tod aus dem Telefon, Vražedná linka, Starkstrom, Bells (Llamada mortal), Squilli di morte, 凶铃
A fun investigative thriller starring Richard Chamberlain as a college-professor-turned-amateur-detective who is looking into the strange death of a young woman. Murder by Phone might have a pretty bonkers premise but it still plays out in a decidedly serious fashion.
I thought the kill scenes were quite spectacular (and surprisingly bloody).
Pair this with Ruggero Deodato's Dial: Help for a fun "telephone horror" double feature.
Murder by Phone or as it was known in the UK "Bells" is one of the better killer telephone flicks I have seen in the last few years.
The plot of a madman using high pitch frequencies to kill people is as silly and illogical as it sounds. You will have to suspend your belief somewhat but all that said it's a pretty fun 80 min ride and what it lacks in logic it makes up for in a high kill count and over-the-top electrocutions.!
This is the third telephone-themed horror I've watched in as many days and it’s definititely the best one!
Someone is killing people by sending electrical shocks through landlines! Right from the opening kill, I knew this was totally my kind of bananas. The plot alone is amiably silly but those kills are what really make this one fun. They’re kind of like the ones in Scanners but they end with an explosion in the face instead of exploding heads. I dug it.
In between those kills, there’s not much happening but I still found it entertaining. Plus, the number of kills is surprisingly high so there’s really not too much time between them. There were some tense scenes involving the main characters that I thought were very well done. This one is absolutely worth checking out for fellow fans of bananas 80’s horror!
Bananameter: 🍌RIPE🍌
Murder by Phone certainly does exactly what it says on the tin. This is, in fact, a movie about people being murdered by phone.
The death scenes are a blast. People answer the phone, hear beeping noises, begin convulsing and bleeding from the eyes and then an electrical shock comes through the phone that sends them flying across the room. The rest of the movie is okay but can't live up to the kill scenes. You'd think the characters investigating the deaths would stop using phones once they see the pattern, but they still rush to answer the phone every time it rings!
Weird. Tedious. Great end credit montage of telephones. This is the manual version of Cell, this movie should retroactively sue SK...in the past before he can plagarize it in the future. But considering how long it takes to make a rotary dial phone call, we'd be right back at today.
What, that's how time travel works, right?
Edged me by showing a cool ass death in the first five minutes before focusing on a(n ugly) man trying to crack the case. Police procedurals, especially led by a dull character, are not for me!! The titular murders and half-decent score are the only things to tide you over in the midst of this muck.
Scavenger Hunt 39/Film 10/A film starring Richard Chamberlain
If you love, love, love over the top eighties death scenes, this film is without a doubt for you. I think I have watched the death scenes in this film 3 times after the film finished. They are overblown, insanely put together, full of disco lights and blood from every body part.
Richard Chamberlain is the star here, looking like he listens lovingly to the Bee Gee's and spending his whole paycheck on a vast collection of eighties style. He is pretty much the dude in this movie. A college professor with a passion for phones, the film plays like some sort of absurd advert for using one particular phone company over…
This movie had me instantly hooked from the opening kill - it's so goofy and bonkers and above all highly entertaining. I was certain the rest of the movie would skimp on deaths because that's usually what happens in these lower budget movies but this did not disappoint. Every death was as stupid and hilarious, with people flying across the room and bleeding eyes a-plenty. The main storyline can be slightly boring at times but there's so many kills and it never overstays it's welcome.
I do so love when a movie has a title that reflects exactly what is about to happen. I mean why even write a review? Okay well to add a little detail to this, someone has designed a device that is killing people through the phone. Oh it's absolutely as silly as it sounds, and and I mean this had to be intended to be campy. For star power we have Richard Chamberlain, and a few others you'll know if you are from Canada like Luba Goy. It's a mystery I suppose, and the deaths are very hilariously cartoonish and horror like. At the same time, there is a fair amount of talking and things not happening and it does look cheap despite having star power. Points mainly for the novelty of the thing, for being direct and for Chamberlain.
You some kind of phone freak?
As cheesy as it can be, having a tech-noir setting in contemporary Toronto circa early 1980s is an undeniably cyber-chic look. Love that one of the titular murder by phones is with the classic kitschy Mickey Holding Handset accessory — nice lil touch of telecommunication pop culture from the prehistoric proto-smartphone era……
Deutscher Titel: „STARKSTROM“
Hier wollte man wohl zur Blütezeit des Slashers neue, frische Wege gehen und lässt einen Unbekannten Leute mittels Starkstromstöße aus dem Telefon töten.
Diese laufen eigentlich immer nach dem selben Prinzip ab, sind aber zum Teil recht packend inszeniert, nutzen sich aber sehr schnell ab und sind auch nicht sehr zahlreich.
Die Geschichte dahinter und das Drumherum sowie die eingestreute Lovestory sind aber so schleppend und dröge inszeniert, dass man hofft, endlich selbst den Titelgeber abzukriegen, damit man nicht endgültig ins Land der Träume entfleucht.
Ein solide inszenierter und gespielter Langeweiler, aus einer Zeit, als Hauptdarsteller Richard Chamberlain noch ein Frauenschwarm war
Für Fans von Stromschlägen, Festnetzfetischisten und einer der wohl dämlichsten Schlusseinstellungen aller Zeiten.
52 horror film challenge 1/52.
No. 14: made in Canada.
Look at that poster! Pythons can't unhinge their jaws as far as that. Even this, though, short-sells the pyrotechnic madness of the kills in this paranoid reworking of the slasher movie. The killer isn't a masked man with a knife or a chainsaw, he's a mystery man behind a control desk, transmitting a strange sound through the phone lines to his victims. Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare At Goats chronicles numerous experiments in sonic weaponry by the American military, some of which are disturbing. None of them, however, resulted in the victim bleeding profusely from the eyes, ears and mouth before flying through the nearest plate-glass window, which is…