cult film freak: CHRISTINA GREGG STALKED IN 'DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN'

Christina Gregg DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS Year: 1962

With shows like CATFISH it may seem somewhat new: grown men soliciting and seducing young naïve girls into their clutches, online, but in the 1961 British New Wave Thriller, it happened pretty much the same way, via payphone...

And while a title like DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN sounds like a public service announcement, it's ironic that the stranger on the phone is the one advising this to his target, gorgeous girl-next-door Christina Gregg, over five-years older than the character but doing a fantastic job in the vulnerable part: looking a hybrid of two babyface starlets, Diane Baker (before) and Jennifer Jason Leigh (after): she's part of what's more a teenage crush movie than a serial killer suspense, and it's not a one way street despite her doing all the acting facially...

Christina Gregg in STRANGERS Rating: ****

The voice of the man who had already stalked and killed a young girl (shown in the prelude) is anything but creepy... Imagine a handsome photo along with graceful, educated writing style for online purposes today and that's his voice then... progressing with each phone call in a rural payphone on a bus route from a pub near the girl's home into town...

Meanwhile, their "relationship" has both hunter and hunted going through all the ingredients of young love, including the introduction, initial trust, minor to major seduction including the word "love" and even, for a short while, breaking up... him doing the breaking... all while testing the waters of the lovely Jean who he calls Samantha...

And she's got a cute, very curious younger sister in BLOOD OF DRACULA child actress Janina Faye: It's too bad that all descriptions of this movie spoils her ultimate/eventual significance into the plot-line, an 11th hour tightening of suspense as good as any more modern horror flick. Which doesn't need remaking since, sadly enough, it's been done many times both in art and real life: And most of the time, without what's an inevitable, intentionally and most likely a predictably uplifting conclusion. Although like many British films, there's a dose of last minute dark irony in there too.