Don’t Answer the Phone! 1980

Kirk Smith, a Vietnam veteran, an amateur bodybuilder, and a gifted but deranged photographer, stalks the streets of Los Angeles as a brutal killer. He strangles young women in lurid fashion, desecrates their bodies, and performs twisted religious rites between murders. The opening scene emphasizes his cold, calculating nature as he kills a nurse and strips her corpse, a stark introduction to the violence that follows. Between killings, he conducts imaginary conversations with his dead father, a haunting sign of his fractured psyche. He fixates on Dr. Lindsay Gale(/actor/flo-lawrence), a psychologist who hosts a radio show and maintains a private practice, dialing into her program with a phony Spanish accent and complaining of headaches and blackouts as a pretext to reach out.

He tails one of Gale’s female patients, Carol, and tortures her to death. He also murders a sex worker while on the line to Gale’s show, forcing Gale to listen to the victim’s screams.

Two goofy detectives, Sgt. Hatcher and Lt. Chris McCabe, are tasked with catching him. McCabe’s brusque demeanor initially clashes with Gale, yet when he intervenes to prevent one of her patients from taking her own life, a wary bond forms between them, leading to a brief romance.

The investigation takes the detectives to Sam Gluckman, Sam Gluckman(/actor/chuck-mitchell), a local pornography dealer who recognizes the crime-scene photographs as the work of Kirk Smith. He had supplied high-quality pornographic images to Smith in the past, and the detectives infer that Gale has become Smith’s next victim. As the case tightens, Smith invades Gale’s home, binds her, and torments her for hours while muttering about his troubled childhood.

McCabe arrives just in time to rescue Gale, and after a brutal confrontation, he shoots Smith repeatedly, including several shots in the back. Kirk Smith stumbles toward a pool and sinks, the water closing over him as he dies. The film closes with his bullet-riddled body floating in the pool, and McCabe sneers, “Adios, creep!”

“Adios, creep!”