No one would deny the first twenty minutes of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS is pure classic horror material: perfectly edited, shot, and acted, genuinely terrifying. Unfortunately, that film meanders after that, taking the viewer through dull, muddled material until we get to a good finale that still cannot top the opening. So, it's no shock to discover WHEN A STRANGER CALLS was an expansion of the director's earlier short film, THE SITTER.
THE SITTER is just about the same as the opening of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, right down to the dialogue and the weird use of freeze frame. It's a brilliant short, only flawed by a somewhat wooden lead actress who's no match for Carol Kane in the later version. But still, this is good stuff and worth seeking out.