The Bottom Line: Is Belle Tolling for Horror Remakes?

Hanging on the telephone may prove hazardous to Camilla Belle.

After showing promise in The Ballad of Jack and Rose and The Chumscrubber, Belle’s taking the road well traveled in her bid to be the next hot young thing. She’s screaming her head off in the latest remake of a decades-old horror yarn, When a Stranger Calls.

Made before the advent of caller ID, this 1979 chiller originally pit baby-sitter Carol Kane against a psycho who phoned in his threats. Now Belle’s receiving the taunting calls.

Oh, dear. Belle should have buzzed Elisha Cuthbert, her costar in The Quiet, before she took the killer’s call. As 24’s damsel in distress can attest, staring death in the face in a horror remake no longer provides the short-term career boost it did several years ago.

If House of Wax hadn’t melted quickly, would Cuthbert even reportedly be considering a return to 24?

Up until last year, audiences devoured horror remakes–including Dawn of the Dead, The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Thirteen Ghosts–faster than Leatherface dismembered his victims. But The Ring and The Grudge fared the best. Few saw the Japanese originals, and thus their American counterparts never felt like retreads.

The only flops were Willard and Psycho, which ironically started this latest cycle of remakes in 1998. If Gus Van Sant was willing to take on Alfred Hitchcock, then no horror classic was safe. (Hence this year’s slate includes The Hills Have Eyes [March 10], The Omen 666 [June 6] and Nicolas Cage’s The Wicker Man [TBA].)

Blinded by low budgets and high returns, the studios glutted theaters last year with remakes. But The Amityville Horror couldn’t scare up more than the original’s $86.4 million, few revisited House of Wax or The Fog, and Dark Water was the first U.S. interpretation of a Japanese ghost story to bomb. The Ring Two turned off viewers, which might be a bad sign for The Grudge sequel (Oct. 20) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel (TBA).

Underwhelmed audiences clearly hated those shoddy imitations, forcing them to turn their attention to originals (Constantine, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hostel) and fresh franchises (Saw, Underworld). What’s old isn’t new again, at least for now.

Worse–and this should concern Belle–last year’s crop failed to produce any new stars. Ryan Reynolds finally scored a hit with The Amityville Horror, but the sitcom veteran couldn’t lure anyone to Just Friends and Waiting…, and comedy’s his forte. Dark Water continued Jennifer Connelly’s post-Oscar losing streak. And Tom Welling (Smallville) and Maggie Grace (Lost) should stick to TV after The Fog.

That’s a long way from the days when The Ring made Naomi Watts a household name, The Grudge proved there was life after Buffy for Sarah Michelle Gellar, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre turned Jessica Biel into a hot property (though Stealth and Elizabethtown cooled her off).

The Bottom Line
When a Stranger Calls is the least famous horror film to be recently remade, which could be to Belle’s advantage. Unsuspecting audiences might turn to this if they’re in the mood for a call-related cat-and-mouse game à la Cellular and Phone Booth. If not, Belle could find herself back to making a name for herself in little-seen independents. And a nasty fate may await those desperately pegging their career prospects to The Hills Have Eyes, The Omen 666, Pulse and The Wicker Man if any follow House of Wax and The Fog by dying a swift and unmerciful death.