There's often a fine line between horror and thriller, and you'll often see thriller movies popping up on lists of great horror films (Silence of the Lambs does this a lot), and as such it can sometimes be hard to know which category a film falls best into. Sorry, Charlie is one of these films, one that straddles the line so well because it feels like the kind of scenario that can happen in real life, and that makes it so much more frightening.
The film starts with a chilling telephone call to 911, where a woman tells the operator that she can hear a baby crying outside and questions if she should investigate or not. Despite the urges from the operator to not go out, the woman does, and we hear her attacked. From here we meet Charlie (Kathleen Kenny), a young woman who has just moved into a house that she has inherited from her grandmother and is in the process of renovating. When she hears the sound of a baby crying she heads outside to check it out, and falls victim to The Gentleman, an attacker who lures women outside with the sound of a crying baby in order to rape them.
We jump forward in time nine months, catching up with Charlie, who's become a shut in, staying inside her home, working as a helpline call operator. She has no interaction with people other than over the phone, choosing to keep herself safe from the outside world. We also learn that The Gentleman's rape left Charlie pregnant. In the time between the attack and now a man has been arrested for the assaults and murders, but Charlie is convinced that they have the wrong man, and believes The Gentleman is still out there. As the night progresses, Charlie's fears that her attacker is watching begin to be proved right as strange events start to happen.
Sorry, Charlie is perhaps one of the best examples of a low budget movie that I can think of off the top of my head. The film is short, around and hour and fifteen minutes long, shot on one location, with only two cast members on screen in the form of Charlie and The Gentleman, with other characters appearing only as voices over the phone. It's a small, contained story set in a small, contained environment, but it never feels like it's lacking. There's no sense that the filmmakers have been constrained by a lack of funding, that they had to keep the cast small for behind the scenes reasons. Perhaps there were some limitations that dictated aspects of the film, but it doesn't come across that way, and instead Sorry, Charlie feels like a film with a clear vision of what it wants to achieve.
With the film being so focused, much of it rides on the back of lead actor Kathleen Kenny, who dominates every scene she's in. The film is with her constantly, told through her eyes, and for the majority of the runtime she's acting to no one, either on her own or speaking on the phone. This feels like a tough situation to be in, but Kenny absolutely shines here, keeping the viewer engaged at every turn. She brings such life to the character. You get drawn into her situation, her isolation, and become invested in her incredibly quickly. Kenny does fantastically throughout that you almost forget that there's going to be another character on the screen with her at some point, and you just get lost in following her everyday life.
But, it's not just a film about Charlie, as her attacker makes his presence known. The Gentleman is an interesting creation. There are absolutely shades of Scream here, especially as he talks to Charlie over the phone a lot, and does the Scream killer thing of pretending to be someone else when first talking to her. And whilst he has a very real physical presence in the film, acted by Travis William Harris, it's the voice that brings the character to life and fills him with personality. Voiced by Connor Brannigan, The Gentleman has a ton of presence. Brannigan has a voice that's both smooth and charismatic, yet also comes across as sinister. It feels like the perfect kind of voice for a character like this, and there are times when he's speaking where he absolutely steals the spotlight from Charlie and becomes the star of the show. Looking at Brannigan's IMDB credits, it's absolutely criminal he's not done more voiceover work as this is a voice that needs to be in animation and games.
There's a lot to enjoy about Sorry, Charlie, and the acting and interesting script will make the run time absolutely fly by. There are some great twists and turns along the way that keep things from being dull, and even if there are points during the film you start to gripe at Charlie for making typical horror film mistakes it all comes together wonderfully at the end. Kathleen Kenny really makes a great case here for why she should be playing final girls in movies, and if we don't see more of her in horror after this it's going to be a huge shame.
If you're looking for something short but sweet that will entertain you from beginning till end Sorry, Charlie is a fantastic choice. It might be looked down upon as a b movie because of the relatively unknown cast and the small scope of the story, but it's better than a lot of big budget films that get the spotlight.
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