The Night Caller (1998)

User Rating:

4.9/10   

Director:

Robert Malenfant

Writers:

Mark Bomback (writer)
Frank Rehwaldt (writer)

Genre:

Thriller

Plot:

A woman goes to desperate measures to meet a successful radio psychologist, even if it means killing in order to do so. |

Plot Keywords:

Radio | Suicide | Child Molestation | Friend | Hallucination

Cast

Shanna Reed	...	Dr. Lindsay Roland
Tracy Nelson	...	Beth Needham
Mary Crosby	...	Nikki Rogers
Cyndi Pass	...	Marge Hampton
Eve Sigall	...	Mama
Howard S. Miller	...	Lee Dixon
Christopher Kriesa	...	Mr. Brill
Zack Hopkins	...	Matt Roland (as Zack Hopkins)
Luisa Leschin	...	Consuela
Rance Howard	...	Hank
Jean Speegle Howard	...	Olivia
Brad Sherwood	...	Andy Saden
J.J. Cohen	...	Bicyclist
Shannon Welles	...	Customer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Judy Nazemetz	...	Operator

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and some language.

Runtime:

91 min | Argentina:92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:18 | Iceland:16 | Australia:MA | USA:R | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Burbank, California, USA

Goofs:

Continuity: When Beth spills her soda all over the newspaper, it spills on the floor. When her boss tells her to mop up the spill, Beth is seen cleaning the wrong side of the floor.

Quotes:

Beth Needham: [singing and forgetting the words] There was a farmer had a pig, and Piggo was his name-o...

This is my kinda campy direct-to-video and cable psycho movie!

Beth Needham (Tracy Nelson) is a childish, repressed psycho who snaps and develops an extreme fixation on kind, sensitive radio psychologist Dr. Lindsay Roland (associate producer Shanna Reed). She kills her awful, chain-smoking mother (the hilarious Eve Sigall, who returns in hallucinations), cashes in some savings bonds and spends the rest of the movie trying to insinuate herself into the doctors life. Anyone who threatens to ruin their budding relationship must die. She calls people things like "snoopy poopy," "baboon butt" and "bossy the cow" before killing them and gets a job babysitting Lindsay's son so she can photocopy her journal and steal her 'April Fresh' deodorant.

Needless to say, THE NIGHT CALLER is absolutely ridiculous, but the script is so chock-full of hilariously asinine one-liners and unbelievable dialogue, that this is one of the funniest "bad" movies I've seen in many years. The actors, all around, are great, too and give a straight-faced go at their roles.