The entire advertising campaign of this film was based on scenes from the first 20 minutes and it worked extremely well.
Carole Kane stars as Jill Johnson, a young woman babysitting young children when their parents go out to dinner and a movie. Very soon she starts getting phone calls from a mysterious man who keeps asking her "Have you checked the children lately?" She calls the police and after several more phone calls they are able to trace them.
The calls are coming from inside the house and Jill finds herself in a house with a homicidal maniac who has already killed the children in what amounts to a bloodbath. The police arrive and the crazed killer is arrested.
Flash forward to 7 years later. The killer, Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley) has escaped from the metal hospital and it's up to the arresting cop from 7 years ago to find him again. Charles Durning does a great job as cop turned private detective John Clifford. Clifford is a man who can never forget what he saw at the original scene of the crime and now only wants to kill Duncan.
After wondering the streets and terrorizing a woman named Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst), Duncan finds Jill who is now married to a successful man and has two children of her own. He calls her and the terror for her starts all over again and works to a great climax. Beckley does a fantastic job as the killer and you can see he is terminally ill when making this film. He died shortly after at the age of 52 from cancer.
This is a well played out film that really delivers the shocks with a minimum of blood and gore. It was remade in 2007 and as usual that remake sucked. I'll never understand why Hollyweird messes with perfection.
This is the only version to see and for horror fans it's a good one. Great for a cold Halloween night viewing. This was actually released on Oct. 26th 1979.
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