The telephone has been an instrument of terror in movies since SORRY WRONG NUMBER and DIAL M FOR MURDER. Scaring Stanwyck and grossing out Grace. Who could forget the phone fright of  WHEN A STRANGER CALLS or PHONE BOOTH? Poor Carol Kane caught in a cage with a cool, kooky killer and Colin Farrell called for the phoney he was!

In the cellular age we have had Cellular and now we have THE CALL (MA) with Halle Berry phoning in her performance as 911 operator, Jordan, caught in a desperate déjà vu with a rank recidivist, a kind of mobile Norman Bates with Buffalo Bill overtones, played with chilling creepiness by Michael Ekland.

There’s a lot to enjoy in this B grade caper of kidnap and carnage whose references to past telephonic photo plays are nicely nodded and nudged. Calling the psycho Michael Foster is a real tongue in the lamb cheeks. When not on the line, the dialogue is pretty drippy, but for the most part, it’s pacey and speeds along in suspense mode thanks to director Brad  Anderson who made the extraordinary THE MACHINIST with Christian Bale a few years back

Abigail Breslin plays the damsel in dialemma, (sic, sorry, couldn’t resist) little miss sunshine under a dark cloud, whose plight unleashes her inner potty mouth. Add to the kidnapping and thrashing, a bad hair day brought on by the barbarian that stresses her tresses culminates in her hatching a plot of rabid retribution against her trashed thatch. He takes the curl, she makes the call.

There’s coda to the climax of the film that has a contemporary political subtext with Jordan standing under a flapping American flag, a victim of terror contemplating torture.  Go girl black power and US kickass all in one.