Don’t Answer the Phone!

Year: 1980

Runtime: 95 mins

Language: English

Director: Robert Hammer

HorrorThrillerHorror

A Vietnam‑war veteran spends his days photographing attractive women, but at night he stalks and strangles them. Driven by the haunting mantra “He’ll Know You’re Alone!”, he fixates on a late‑night radio psychiatrist’s callers, turning the psychiatrist’s patients into his next victims and using the airwaves as a hunting ground.

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Don’t Answer the Phone! (1980) – Full Plot Summary & Ending Explained

Read the complete plot breakdown of Don’t Answer the Phone! (1980), including all key story events, major twists, and the ending explained in detail. Discover what really happened—and what it all means.

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!”

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 14:19

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These films are grouped by their shared commitment to a high-intensity, heavy emotional experience defined by explicit violence and disturbing psychological themes. They possess a specific, unpolished aesthetic and a direct, often unsettling approach to storytelling that prioritizes impact over subtlety.

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