Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 13: Murder By Phone (1982)

It took me a minute to figure out why I decided to put Murder By Phone on my countdown list in the first place, but then I remembered it was because of this little blurb in Trashola, a horror movie zine I used to read way back in the 1980's:

This is a bit of a forgotten movie, lord knows I don't remember ever seeing anything about it, aside from the above, but when I looked it up and saw the cast, I figured why not give it a shot. Richard Chamberlain stars as Nat Bridger, a professor and environmentalist who stumbles upon a possible murder when a former student dies after answering a public phone in a subway. Police rule it a heart attack; Bridger suspects something more. John Houseman (!) also co-stars as a colleague of Bridger's, who makes a big point of separating his trash, which seems pretty progressive for 1982! The movie also has a score by John Barry, and was directed by Michael Anderson, whose Around the World In 80 Days won the Best Picture Oscar in 1957.

All of this makes it strange that Murder By Phone is not available on DVD or Blu-ray, so the only version I was able to watch was on YouTube, and this version was obviously ripped from an old VHS copy. Of course, it's not exactly a great movie, but it's certainly no worse than plenty of 1980's horror flicks that have gotten the Blu-ray treatment, and the phone "murders" are also worthy of something out of Cronenberg.

If you want to give it a look, you can watch it via YouTube, below!