High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! When a Stranger Calls is a 1979 horror/thriller film starring Carol Kane and Charles Durning, directed by Fred Walton. The film derives its story from the classic folk legend of "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs". The original music score is composed by Dana Kaproff. The film was voted no. 28 in Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments", while the theme of a murderer telephoning his prey from inside their own homes has also been used by many other horror films, including Scream. While this particular story was entirely fictitous, there was a real-life incident, dramatized on TLC, whereby a man broke into somebody's home and repeatedly telephoning their babysitter, before tying a sock to the mouth of her young charge, a little boy. Unlike the film, police reacted immediately and the intruder was caught.