Don't Tell Mom, The Babysitter's Scared

When I was a teen, my friends and I loved having sleepovers. One of our favorite activities while sleeping over, besides raiding the fridge, was to tell ghost stories. We would go through our repertoire of "true stories," trying hard to scare each other, even though we knew the tales by heart. The one story that never failed to freak us out was the story of a girl babysitting who gets creepy phone calls telling her to check on the kids and that the caller is watching her. The story ends with the line, uttered by the police: "The call is coming from inside the house!" Once we heard that, we usually screamed and then couldn't sleep for hours.

Fast forward to 2006 and Hollywood has once again decided to capitalize on our worst fears. Here's a synopsis of a new movie called When A Stranger Calls:

In a remote hilltop house, high school student Jill Johnson settles in for a routine night of babysitting. With the children sound asleep and a beautiful home to explore, she locks the door and sets the alarm. But when a series of eerie phone calls from a stranger insists that she check the children, Jill begins to panic. Fear escalates to terror when she has the calls traced and learns that the calls are coming from inside the house. Jill must summon all of her inner strength if she is going to fight back and make it out of the house alive.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you that every single mom I know that has children of babysitting age has absolutely forbidden their kids from seeing this movie. And if that's not enough, even the kids, who generally love going to movies and being scared to death, are not willing to go.

I find several things very amusing about this movie. First, that it's a story as old as the hills and it's being rehashed...apparently effectively. Secondly, that in this day and age of caller ID and high tech security systems, movie villains are able to use the same old scare tactics, and have us cringing not laughing. And finally, that universally we parents understand that no matter how old or cynical our kids have become, they're never too old to be scared out of their wits. In some strange way, it's reassuring to know that some things never change.