Dial Help (1988)

In the hands of a gifted director, such as Italian Ruggero Deodato, artful lighting strategies, crisp and intelligently mobile camera work, and editing that moves along at the speed of heightened interest all can combine to make something that is essentially a piece of tasty yellow cheese look like an offering of sculpted gold. Deodato’s Dial Help (1988) is essentially a story of metaphysical telephonic vengeance being played out in the slaughter of innocents. Mind-numbingly nimble, black-haired, fixation bait Charlotte Lewis has somehow dialed in to a deadly entity that travels over the wires and shoots out from the receiver of her telephone. She is spared, but less attractive cast members drop like flies.