HELLO? (2025)

BFI / Sight & Sound Best Video Essays, 2025

This video essay explores the role of the landline in five canonical telephone slasher films - Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Black Christmas (1974), When a Stranger Calls (1979) and Scream (2022). It utilises the potential of videographic criticism to imagine alternative endings for Leona, Jess, Jill, and Tara.

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First draft conceptualised at the Scholarship in Sound and Image Workshop on Videographic Criticism, Middlebury College, Vermont, USA, July 2022.

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Final version, with creator statement, due for open access publication in CePRA Journal, Spring 2025

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Made by Alison Peirse

Original Soundtrack by _HEAVYLEG