the party's over
A babysitter receives a phone call. The man on the line asks about the children she’s babysitting. After several calls, she calls the police and they trace the next call—it’s coming from a second line inside the house. The version of this story that I know best comes not from someone telling the story around a campfire or wherever but from When a Stranger Calls . Interpretation of this story can go a lot of directions. The babysitter not doing her job thoroughly may stem from fear of such in an age when young women were claiming more independence and, like Jess in Black Christmas rejecting motherhood and other “womanly” ideals. Like the notion (somewhat via Clover (1992)) that female sexuality is being punished in the slasher film, the urban legend of the babysitter and the man upstairs deals in feminine independence (not necessarily or exclusively sexuality) being punished by a man positioned literally and figuratively above her. It’s arguably about patriarchy, paternalism, the punis...