The Black Phone is that one sequence from Coraline where she’s trapped in the room with the ghosts of the other dead kids extended to feature length -I’m sure other works have done this kind of supernatural situation, but that’s the one that most immediately comes to mind. What I’m saying is that it feels very much like a condensed premise, and indeed The Black Phone is a stretched-out version of a short story. It was written by Joe Hill -you know, the son of Stephen King; which might account for its’ interest in such things as clairvoyant children, predators bearing balloons, and a general 70s/80s atmosphere of suburban horror. The apple doesn’t fall far from tree it seems, but that’s okay -especially as between himself and his father, Hill has the much better movie for 2022.
It was adapted by Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill after Derrickson left Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and very much feels like their attempt to make a classic Stephen King horror movie, in the vein of something Cujo or Christine or the original Firestarter, but on the small budget that Blumhouse affords them. Derrickson is of course arguably one of the figures who built Blumhouse’s reputation, his 2012 movie Sinister one of its’ great early hits alongside the Paranormal Activity series. And for The Black Phone, he reunites with his star from that earlier film, Ethan Hawke, playing by his own account his first movie villain.
He is the Grabber, basically a perfect personification of the Stranger Danger archetype fed to children by concerned parents. He drives around in a black, windowless van, lures in children with faux magic tricks and balloons and then imprisons them in a soundproof basement –empty but for a mattress, toilet, and an old black rotary phone he claims doesn’t work. After a couple abductions of classmates, this is what happens to middle schooler Finney Shaw (Mason Thames), already a victim of both bullies at school and an alcoholic, abusive father (Jeremy Davies) at home.
In both these respects the movie is pretty unflinching, as though Derrickson feels compelled to dispel that rosy image of being a kid in this era painted by the like of Stranger Things. When these bullies beat up another kid you see the blood on his face, on their fists; when the father gets mad at his daughter, you see the spittle as he’s yelling, you hear the cries of anguish as he lashes her with a belt. In fact, the violence encountered in Finney’s social and domestic life may outpace what he experiences as the Grabber’s captive. It’s a tough, intimidating world, this corner of suburban Denver, and for Finney especially the pressure is on to stand up for himself and fight back. There is a slightly bigger kid, Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora), who is friendly enough with Finney to take on his bullies for him –but at home he struggles to do anything to combat his fathers’ abuses. The movie plays heavily on this introverted powerlessness felt by Finney, the whole world looming over him threateningly –it does well putting the audience in his head space and conveying the fear he carries through everyday life.
Finney is the focus of the movie, much as the marketing may emphasize Hawke and his character as a classic domineering horror movie villain –as far as story weight, he’s more akin to a Buffalo Bill than a Hannibal Lecter. The Grabber is portrayed entirely in relation to Finney and his point of view –we don’t see him in his everyday life and we know nothing about him. No psychological backstory is needed here, he’s just a sadistic creep who kidnaps children and gets his thrills killing them. Hawke plays him very well, with an unsettling childishness and affectations of calm. Despite his performance often being hidden beneath a mask resembling something out of a silent movie (Haxan comes to mind), he quite effectively radiates terror and claustrophobia. And the mask isn’t a terrible hindrance, I like the way Derrickson and Hawke give it character –such as the detachable mouthpiece utilized very smartly for suspense. Thames is commendable too, his own performance in scenes with the Grabber lending credence to the gravity of this circumstance. He like the audience, is expecting the worst, that timid personality accentuating the tension.
He has the comfort though of that black phone, the films’ major supernatural plot element through which the ghosts of the Grabber’s victims can communicate with him, feeding him information and aiding in his escape plans. And a couple of them had been known to Finney in life. Like with the Grabber, the nature of these spirits and the phone is not explained. But it’s a compelling plot device, allowing Finney some character development and even voices to talk to while holed up. The various escape attempts are maybe a bit typical -digging one’s way out through a wall, cracking a combination lock with the Grabber sleeping nearby. But Derrickson ratchets up the suspense in these quite well -that latter scene for instance artfully shot from the other side of the screen door while shifting the camera focus between Finney in the foreground and the Grabber reposed in the back.
Of course there’s a subplot to this that is less successful focused on Finney’s close younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) trying to find him through her repressed psychic abilities -something that apparently wasn’t part of the original story and seems to be added for obligatory King flavour and to pad out the runtime. There are a couple good moments here and there, McGraw delivers a lot of personality through her no-nonsense precociousness with authority figures and is genuinely charming to watch; but that whole side of the movie distracts from the pacing and the immediacy of the primary storyline. And it ultimately doesn’t amount to a whole lot as Finney’s arc demands he rescue himself.
As to that the final stretch of the movie, it isn’t terribly thrilling. It plays a very predictable shock beat before ending the conflict between Finney and the Grabber in an underwhelming, almost Home Alone-like ploy that takes away some of the Grabber’s previous menace. It’s also worth noting that while Derrickson constructs the horror for the most part in tonally chilling ways, he still plays a few of those cheap jump scares throughout. More jarring though is a completely inappropriate needle-drop of “Fox on the Run” as a transition to a flashback that comes right as a kid on the phone tells Finney viscerally he is going to die. The flashback is to establish that Finney knew this kid, a bully who beat up another kid in a convenience store before being arrested, and to provide a convoluted avenue for Gwen to psychically access the phone -but there had to be a less pointlessly bewildering way to bring that about. There’s nothing else in the movie quite like this, though a few bits of characterization do come off awkwardly, particularly concerning the father and Finney’s school crush -which itself comes as a surprise as the film had at that point dropped visual cues that Finney might be gay.
What makes The Black Phone work though is the strength of its’ premise, its’ brutally honest yet restrained grittiness -both in the subject matter and direction, and the performances by Hawke, Thames, and McGraw. It’s not dealing in much new material for the genre -again its’ mostly designed to be a King pastiche. But as far as that goes it does a successful job, smartly and simply.
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