When a Stranger Calls Back

A young babysitter named Julia is looking after two children one evening when a stranger knocks at her door, claiming his car has broken down and asking to use the phone. The line is dead, and the man grows more insistent about being let inside. The events of that night lead into a later ordeal for Julia, now a college student, whose apartment is fitted with three locks and who still lives with the memory of what happened.

The film follows Jill Johnson, who works at a crisis center, and the retired detective John Clifford, who join forces to track down someone preying on a young woman. Carol Kane reprises the role of Jill Johnson and Charles Durning returns as John Clifford, both having appeared in the same parts in an earlier film. Jill Schoelen plays Julia Jenz, with Gene Lythgow, Karen Elizabeth Austin and Babs Chula among the credited cast of twenty-one.

Fred Walton directed and wrote the screenplay, returning to material he had handled before: this film follows When a Stranger Calls (1979) and April Fool's Day (1986) in his directing credits, and precedes The Courtyard (1995). It was produced by Tom Rowe with MCA Television Entertainment, Pacific Motion Pictures, Krost/Chapin Productions and Privilege Productions, and runs 94 minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.1 from around 4,500 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.9 from a much smaller number of votes, indicating a modest but fairly settled level of audience recognition.