The Caller (2023) by Richard Anthony Dunford

Director: Richard Anthony Dunford

Year: 2023

Country: United Kingdom

Alternate Titles: Minacious

Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Plot:

While working from home, a woman going through the routines as a call-center operator for a large bank is threatened and targeted by a vicious customer and tries to ignore it only to believe that he's found her and tracked her down to her house which puts her life in great danger.

Review:

Overall, this is a pretty solid suspense/thriller that has a lot going for it. The central premise is quite chilling with the idea of the anonymous figure on the other end of the line providing a series of clues among their threats that they know who you are and where you live despite the promise of anonymity. This sets her off into a fine spiral of thrills and chills as her already frazzled mindset that comes from how the interaction started on the job that then goes towards the more dangerous once it's established he's followed her. This is all paid off nicely with the finale where the cat-and-mouse stalking gives this a bit of intriguing action and confrontations in the house that have some surprises in store, making for an overall fun time here.

Where the film gets held up is the slightly overlong running time where it spends quite a lot of time on the mundane qualities of her job to the detriment of the stalking angle. While it's good to know that her job is still being performed even after the targeted call, the fact that so much of the running time here consists of her sitting around at a computer clacking away on her screens answering the same type of questions over and over again makes the film feel somewhat overlong and redundant. Some of these repetitive moments could've been trimmed down or changed into a different type of consumer issue to go through which could've changed it up slightly. It's not a big issue but it's what holds this down the most.

Overview: ***.5/5

A really fun thriller/slasher effort, there’s a lot to like with this one that makes it hold it up enough that the minor issues on display aren’t enough to bring it down too much. Those who are intrigued by this type of genre fare, appreciate the kind of horror/thriller on display, or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while those who don’t enjoy this type of effort should heed caution.