If nothing else, this episode at least gave me some good ideas for a name and an album theme in case I would ever start a metal band! I'd name us "Dead Grandmother" and write a whole bunch of songs about how young children deal with their first real encounter with death. Is there something wrong with me? Probably, yes!
Due to its themes, "Long Distance Call" is automatically a lot eerier and more unsettling than most of its fellow "Twilight Zone" episodes. There's something naturally sinister about the bond between an elderly, dying person and a healthy young child. I always fear that old folks want to own and absorb the purity and innocence of children. That's not what "Long Distance Call" is about, however. Grandma Bayles disregards her own son and literally ignores her daughter-in-law, but she's absolutely fond of her grandson Billy. For his fifth birthday, she gives him a toy telephone and the message that Billy will always be able to talk to her. When Grandma passes away the next day, the parents discover that little Billy actually does still talk to her via the toy telephone. What a cheap and easy alternative for babysitting, you'd think, but things become a bit disturbing when Grandma, from beyond the grave, urges her grandson to commit suicide and join her.
I disagree with several other viewers around here who claim that the episode is implausible because no loving grandmother would ever want her grandchild to die. Pay attention to the dialogues between Chris and Sylvia, in which he clarifies that grandma suffered a lot in life. She lost two of her own children. She's angry with Chris because he survived and detests Sylvia because she took away her only remaining son. She's an embittered and selfish woman and wants to keep Billy exclusively to herself. "Long Distance Call" is a very moody and atmospheric tale, with a powerfully creepy performance by the Hungarian born Lily Darvas as the grandmother. Although she only appears in the intro sequence, you feel like she's definitely present throughout the full episode; talking on the phone and waiting on the edge of life and death to reach out for little Billy. Yikes!
