Have you checked the children?

“Have you checked the children?”  The most chilling question for parents and babysitters everywhere. In 1979, the nightmares parents had become a cinematic reality. The famous film When a Stranger Calls created the fear, which produced a psychopathic killer who stalks babysitters. Not only is the child being endangered, but even worse, the parent is not the one around when it is happening.

         In the original film, Jill, a babysitter, is being stalked by the murderer and receives strange calls all night. When Jill alerts the police they suggest it is just a prank caller, but when the odd phone calls continue she goes to the police again who then begin a trace on the phone. When the phone rings again, Jill answers to hear that the police discovered the calls are coming from inside the house and to get out immediately. As soon as she can get to the door to escape, a cop is standing on the other side to come to her rescue. When back up arrives and they search the house they discover the children to be murdered in their beds and the killer nowhere to be found. It doesn’t end there though, because seven years later once Jill has her own children the obscene calls she received as a teenager begin to happen again. While these calls are being made, the killer has no idea that a private investigator hired by the murdered children’s parents is also on the search for him.

         In the remake premiering in 2006, things changed up a bit. The film focuses completely on the one night of Jill babysitting and doesn’t follow her down the road seven years later. The film is centered on the high school student Jill who is made to babysit for a wealthy family as a punishment and is missing a school bonfire that all her friends and ex boyfriend are attending. Upon arrival to the very sleek mansion, she discovers the children she is babysitting are already asleep and doesn’t have to meet or deal with them. Shortly after her arrival she begins receiving strange phone calls, which she suspects to be her friends having a laugh while at the bonfire. When she answers the phone, she hears “Have you checked the children?”, she panics. She runs to check and finds them sleeping in their beds. The next call freaks her out to the point of her dialing the police because the caller knows she went upstairs to check the children. As in the original, the police suspect it to be prank calling but to put her mind at ease say they will trace it. She gets the same news as the original babysitter; the call is coming from inside the house. This sends Jill into frenzy, go upstairs save the children? Save herself? She dashes up the stairs to find them and get them out of the house but also stay hidden from the killer. The entire night is spent on saving not only her own life, but two children as well.

         The remake differs from the film in many aspects because it expanded the small beginning scene of the original into a whole movie, which is an interesting take. 
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