Film

Don't Answer the Phone!

A 1980 slasher following a Vietnam vet who photographs and murders women, then targets a radio psychiatrist's vulnerable patients. Gritty and grubby, it's lean exploitation horror—brutal rather than clever, shot through with genuine unease. For viewers who want their horror to feel dangerous and cheap, not polished.

TMDb rating2.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy grimy, low-budget early-eighties thrillers where the menace comes through a telephone line and the craft is scrappy but earnest.

Skip it if the sleaze is front and center, and the pacing sags through long stretches of talk, so if you want taut suspense or restraint, this will test you.

What it asks of you: Ninety-five minutes of slow, talky setup before the tension tightens, asking patience with a rough, cheap picture and a tone that swings between leering and grim.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Psycho1960

The template for everything that follows: a disturbed killer, voyeurism, a radio/phone connection between hunter and hunted, and photography as predatory vision. Hitchcock's command of suspense raises the architectural bar.

But It's been referenced to death and takes its time. The motel interlude may feel slow if you're primed for gore rather than dread.

Psycho poster

Peeping Tom1960

A British mirror-image: a killer who photographs victims through a camera-mounted blade. More explicit about the link between voyeurism and murder, more transgressive, and visually ravishing in a way that makes the content worse.

But It's a formal, methodical film about a sympathetic monster. No catharsis or moral clarity; some find that unbearable.

Peeping Tom poster

Maniac1980

Released the same year, equally unpolished and ugly. Joe Spinell as a scalp-collecting killer is raw and unblinking—an American answer to Peeping Tom with none of the aestheticism. Synthesizer score that crawls under your skin.

But Genuinely misanthropic and degrading. Not entertaining in a traditional sense; it wants to make you uncomfortable and largely succeeds.

Maniac poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Don't Answer the Phone!

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Wavelength1983

Same era, same medium (video), same paranoia about invisible watchers and the technology that lets them in.

A video art piece masquerading as science fiction—a woman alone in an apartment receiving mysterious radio signals. Shot entirely on video, hypnotic and eerie, it's about isolation and contact and the terror of not knowing who's listening.

But Experimental and glacial. Almost no plot. Requires comfort with ambiguity and discomfort. Only 87 minutes but feels longer.

Wavelength poster
More like this (7)

Cruising1980

Friedkin's fever dream about an undercover cop hunting a killer in the leather underworld. Ambiguous, perverse, and formally daring—it treats genre as a vehicle for something weirder than a whodunit.

But Hated by multiple communities and criticised for homophobic implications. Dense and strange in ways that can feel pretentious rather than frightening.

Cruising poster

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer1986

The spiritual successor to Don't Answer the Phone—Michael Rooker as a drifter, a story of accumulation and mundane evil. Shot on video, deliberately artless, it refuses to sensationalize even as it documents horror.

But Deeply depressing and plotless. There's no arc, no justice, no release. Some find it more tedious than transgressive.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer poster

Dressed to Kill1980

De Palma at his most formally playful: a psychosexual thriller about a killer in a trench coat, set against New York low-life. Stylish and nasty, sexy and violent, a giallo in English.

But The gender politics are genuinely questionable. Also very much a director's film—if you don't like De Palma's mannered aesthetic, it'll feel overwrought.

Dressed to Kill poster

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre1974

Grainy, almost documentary in its brutality, it created the template for cheap horror that feels expensive through sheer conviction. Lean and ugly and never lets you settle into your seat.

But Famously difficult to watch. The unrelenting assault wears you out. And it's been so imitated that the rawness can now feel dated.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre poster

Spasmo1974

An Italian giallo about a man who witnesses a killing and becomes obsessed with a woman connected to it. Formally baroque, genuinely twisted, and the kind of thing that rewards a viewer primed for weirdness.

But Confusing plot, dubbed dialogue, and a pace that meanders. Requires patience and acceptance of European horror logic.

Spasmo poster

The Driller Killer1979

Ferrara's art-school descent into madness: a struggling painter with a hand drill. Shot on video, cheaply and ferociously. Underground horror that means it.

But Incoherent, genuinely unpleasant, and feels like watching someone have a breakdown. No structure, no payoff, just alienation on VHS.

The Driller Killer poster

The Telephone1988

Both use the telephone as a vector for unseen menace, but Torn's film treats it as comedy-horror and existential nightmare rather than crime. Different register, same spine.

Rip Torn as a man driven mad by an incessant, nameless caller. A one-room play adapted to film with mounting hysteria. Absurdist and deeply strange—the killer here is a voice, a premise, a mounting dread.

But Stagey and claustrophobic. The symbolism is heavy-handed. Feels like a curiosity—lesser Chodorov, interesting precisely because it's weird.

The Telephone poster

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