8 Horror Movies That Send Terror Through Old-School Phone Lines

The new Black Phone 2 trailer centers on a phone booth that allows the Grabber—who seemingly met his end in the first Black Phone movie—to hiss new threats at his intended prey. That’s a shade more sinister than how the phone was used in the 2021 original, when a mysterious land line allowed the dead to impart survival advice to the living.

But “scary phone calls” are a time-honored horror tradition (check out io9’s taxonomy here!). Forget cell phones, FaceTime, and internet ghosts: today we’re looking at 10 memorable showcases of land-line terror brought to the screen.

Scream

Opening the film with a faux “wrong number” that’s actually a killer’s way of taunting his next victim is scary; having the killer get all meta and steer the conversation toward favorite horror movies is even scarier; having the dying victim’s mother pick up the extension and hear her daughter gasping her last breath is the scariest. Scream hit theaters in 1996, long before cellphones became ubiquitous, and while the franchise has continued on as technology has advanced, the first film’s clever use of such a well-known trope remains a series standout.

Black Christmas

The groundbreaking 1974 holiday slasher is not only the most effective on-screen depiction of “the call is coming from inside the house” of all time, it also features maybe the most genuinely distressing series of phone calls ever. The shrieking, overlapping voices are otherworldly and reference a narrative that has seemingly nothing to do with the freaked-out sorority sisters hanging on to the receiver. Black Christmas also goes hard with its call-tracing subplot, showing us just how much effort that used to involve in the days before cell phone towers could pinpoint creeps within 100 feet. And it ends with a phone ringing, hammering home that in the right context, there’s no more frightful sound.

When a Stranger Calls

Released in 1979, When a Stranger Calls leans into that same urban legend of the call coming from inside the house, with the added flavor of a babysitter in peril and, when the story flash-forwards, the ol’ “escaped lunatic” storyline. These are all familiar now, but they weren’t back then, and no matter how many times you hear it, “Have you checked the children?” is a gut-punch of an opener when you pick up.

Clown in a Cornfield

This recent release (haven’t checked it out yet? What are you waiting for?) takes place in the present day, which means when a pair of teenage girls are desperately trying to call for help, their levels of panic skyrocket when they’re confronted by a rotary-dial phone. It’s such a relic and so unhelpful, it might as well be the possessed Fisher Price phone from Skinamarink instead.

Compliance

This skin-crawling 2021 thriller starring The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Ann Dowd is based on a true story, which makes its ick factor even higher. A fast food restaurant manager takes a phone call from someone who claims to be a cop investigating a theft involving an employee who’s still there working her shift—and as the hours pass, the voice on the phone coaxes all involved to do some very regrettable things. Compliance is technically not a horror movie, but in so much as ordinary human beings can be cruel monsters, it might as well be.

Telefon

Another thriller with a horror-movie idea at its core, this 1977 Cold War tale has action star Charles Bronson propelling the narrative as a series of sleeper agents are activated one by one. The phone enters into its Manchurian Candidate plot because the “on” switch is activated when a brainwashed, deep-cover agent overhears lines from a certain Robert Frost poem. The title alone tells you how important the phone is here; it’s fully weaponized to turn seemingly ordinary folks into assassins with just a conversation fragment.

976-Evil

Robert Englund directed this 1988 cautionary tale about pay-by-the-minute phone lines—which may seem like a novelty (in addition to being a very outdated distraction in 2025), but instead might actually be providing a direct link to Satan. Teen cousins find out the hard way what happens when you get too excited by a new devilish influence in your life, but only one ends up getting dragged to hell in the end.

The Ring

Of all the dreaded calls to come through your land line, what could be worse than a demonic child reminding you that because you watched a certain cursed video tape, you have just seven days to live? Even the Grabber doesn’t have a ticking clock that precise.

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