Written by: Ryan Dailey
The Black Phone, based on the short story of the same name by Joe Hill, is a reunion of the minds behind Sinister, being directed by Scott Derrickson, co-written by Robert Cargill and starring Ethan Hawke.
The Black Phone is the tale of Hawke’s character, “The Grabber,” who abducts long-haired teen boys and murders them in his basement. Finney (Mason Thames) is his newest victim and who the movie follows. The terrified Finney begins to receive phone calls from the disconnected black phone hanging from the wall of the soundproof basement. The voices that try to guide Finney and aid in his survival are the disembodied voices of The Grabber’s previous victims.
The film runs a subplot involving Finney and his sister, Gwen, (Madeleine McGraw) caring for their drunkard father, forcing the children to rely on one another for support, not only in dealing with school yard bullies, but including sister Gwen using her clairvoyance to lead the police in the search for her brother.
The film lies in the middle of the road in terms of horror films, as it does not stand out nor does it feel like a complete waste of time. This movie simply exists. If you truly feel the need to watch a film on child abduction, The Boy Behind the Door did it better and was far more thought provoking and nail-biting. I do not feel that it is entirely the films’ fault, however, as it is based on a short story and tries to stretch it out into a feature length runtime. Secondly, Joe Hill is not entirely his own man. His writings for the most part, read like he stole his father’s first drafts from the trash can and tried to pass them off as his own.
Coming from the team behind Sinister, the hopes were high for this film. The horror community was given a very forgettable film that has little rewatch value.
This film had all of the ammunition to become a cult classic like The Strangers or The Town That Dreaded Sundown. The afore-mentioned Sinister crew, masks designed by Tom Savini, a severely talented cast of actors. All of this becomes lost in a feature-length gallery of horror movie tropes and Stephen King cliches.
If you are in the mood to take your partner to a film where you can hold one another’s hands, shove popcorn in one another’s mouths and turn off your mind, this film is perfect for that.
The Black Phone is playing only in theaters.