 In her review for "The New York Times", Janet Maslin wrote of the film ""When a Stranger Calls" is an energetic first film", adding that "the frightened-babysitter opening of the movie is marvelously modern, as Mr. Walton demonstrates that a haunted house with an ice-making refrigerator is intrinsically scarier than a house without one.He also makes the most of that fearsome modern weapon, the telephone.