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In Locke, which opened in theaters yesterday, construction foreman Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy, absolutely killing it) gets in his car and drives toward London and begins a slow descent into heart-pounding stress. The entire movie takes place in Locke's car, and, thanks to Hardy's knockout performance, it's riveting.
Locke also got us to thinking—where else have we seen characters' lives, sometimes quickly and violently, get upended at the sound of a ringing telephone?
In movies, ranging from When a Stranger Calls to Taken, answering the phone can literally be a matter of life and death. Not to mention, some painfully cringe-inducing moments of rejected love, like Mikey's unanswered phone messages in Swingers. Let's take a look back at film's dark history with these talking devices with 10 Movie Scenes That Will Make You Scared As Hell To Pick Up the Phone.
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Ghostface's Notorious Prank Call in Scream (1996)
The Chronic of horror movie telephone scenes begins when Casey (Drew Barrymore), while home alone, picks up her phone and hears a strange dude's voice. A voice that, let's be clear, can only be described as having a "peep show matinee creeper' baritone. She quickly hangs up.
And then, of course, she answers when he calls back. During their lengthy conversation, she even flirts with him. You'd think her serial killer alert would ring off the hook when he starts menacingly quizzing her about horror movies.
Watching the scene for the first time, without analytic hindsight, Scream's opening is incredibly effective, and scary as you-know-what. If you're ever home alone at night, like Casey, and the phone rings, it's probably best to ignore and start blasting the TV's volume.
The World's Saddest Voicemails in Swingers (1996)
Mike Peters (Jon Favreau) likes a girl who doesn't like him the same back, so he reacts as most reasonable men would: he leaves pathetic message after pathetic message on her answering machine.
Nearly twenty years before the unknown creative forces behind the word "thirsty" coined that term, poor Mike Peters embodied it. But imagine being the girl. After hearing his endless message, you'd swear off answering the phone, in fear of having to uncomfortably tell him he's a psycho. Or you could just spring for caller ID.
Talking to a Dead Man in Heat (1995)
Roger Van Zant (William Fichtner) really should've let the call go to voicemail. By not doing so, he hears Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) say this pleasant quote: "I'm talking to an empty telephone...because there is a dead man on the other end of this fucking line."
Heat was released in the '90s, back when messing with a De Niro character's money meant your time on Earth was limited. Van Sant was dumb enough to do just that, thus prompting the above response. And after watching this Heat scene, you'll never want to get a random call from Bobby De Niro, either.
Those Damn Kidnappers in Taken (2008)
Lesson learned: don't take anything from Liam Neeson. No, not even sugar or milk.
Unfortunately, Hollywood likes to make Armenian villains suffer slow, painful deaths. Yet, unaware of that, the kidnappers in Taken still snatch up Neeson's daughter. And due to their ignorance, they call a guy who has a killer set of special kills that most definitely don't include bookmaking and tell him that they have his kid.
For any other parent, this is the ultimate nightmare phone call, but not for Neeson. He's the type of guy who makes the caller wish he didn't pick up. There's a Neeson/Chuck Norris combo joke in there, somewhere.
The Silence in The Ring (2002)
You know when you wake up in the morning excited for a hearty breakfast and the disappointment you feel when you repeatedly shake the cereal box you already know is empty? What happens to every person who answers a phone call in The Ring must feel ike that, but a lot worst.
The second you hear the ring, expect the absolute worst. Just ask Rachel (Naomi Watts). Unlike most suspenseful movie phone calls, the calls in The Ring don't have a heavy-breathing asthmatic on the other end, but, rather, a silence interrupted by guttural throat clicks.
Ghostface, Again, in Scream 2 (1997)
Sorority House. Nightfall. Quiet.
Cici (Sarah Michelle Gellar) clearly never watched a scary movie before college. Like so many now-dead horror movie victims before her, she answers the phone while alone, and, surprise, it's the murderous Ghostface on the other line. It's easy to understand why Ghostface keeps asking these girls if they like to scary movies. Based on their tragic instincts, they must not.
The twist, this time around, is the killer uses the ringing phone as a decoy to attack from behind. Mission accomplished.
The Unseen Sniper in Phone Booth (2003)
Stu (Colin Farrell) is a self-involved publicist who cheats on his wife. Inside the titular phone booth, he calls his side girl, hangs up, and then answers the payphone as it mysteriously rings. He's either a moron or under the assumption that he's the lucky one-millionth person to pick up that pay phone. He answers and "the caller" (Kiefer Sutherland) tells a bewildered Stu that if he hangs up, he will shoot him from his sniper's perch.
Stu's unfortunate position is legitimately frightening. That's what happens once you make idiotic decision to play secretary in a cramped New York City phone booth.
The Phone Tongue in Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
In one of this horror classic's freakiest scenes, Freddy Krueger forces himself upon the unsuspecting Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) by literally sticking his tongue down her throat through the phone. There's no way she could have seen it coming, either.
Krueger definitely holds a place in most of our childhood nightmares, thus making sleep seem like a terrible nighttime option. But through this Elm Street moment, he also made it impossible to battle insomnia by calling one of those salacious "women of the night" for a little, you know, one-on-one, vocal entertainment. A double whammy.
The Stranger in When a Stranger Calls (1979)
While babysitting, Jill (Carol Kane) answers the phone and hears, ominously, "Have you checked the children?" At first, she logically thinks that it's their father just checking in, but nope. Of course, she should know the difference between the loving father she has met before and the creepy, foreign voice of a stranger.
Plus, what parent calls the babysitter to say, "Have you checked the children?" and then hang up, twice. One who should be unemployed, frankly.
"Billy" in Black Christmas (1974)
In the horror classic Black Christmas, the faceless "Billy" climbs into the attic of a sorority house and starts picking them off one by one. But first, he wants to prank call them using possibly the scariest mush-mouth effect ever heard on screen. Which the sorority sisters apparently find curiously irresistible, because they continue to stay in the house after several verbal assaults from a voice that continuously threatens them.
Their response, time after time—and because the movie is going to last 90 minutes, dammit—is, in effect, "How creepy." Thirty seconds into the first call, the girls realize it's not of one sister's customary douchebag boyfriend prank calling. And by then, it's too late.