The Black Phone is one of those movies where if you’ve seen the trailer you basically know what is going to happen. But, it’s like reading the CliffsNotes for a classic novel; you might know all the plot points, but you don’t get the true experience.
Based on a short story of the same name by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King), The Black Phone is about a masked serial killer the kids call “the grabber” in a sleepy north Denver suburb in 1978. When the grabber abducts Finney (Mason Thames), it’s up to his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), whose dreams sometimes come true, to help find Finney. Meanwhile, Finney receives help from the ghosts of the grabber’s victims via a disconnected black phone attached to the wall of the grimy basement in which he’s being held.
Coming from the son of Stephen, it’s all very King-esque: the dreary neighborhood, kids cussing and riding bikes, bullies, alcoholic fathers, a creepy child predator, and just a touch of the supernatural in Gwen’s visions and Finney’s phone. And it all comes together on the strength and simplicity of the source material, the direction, and the performances.
Scott Derrickson, whose early horror films landed him the first Doctor Strange standalone, nails the late ’70s aesthetic of oppressive browns, and he allows the film to breathe and the characters to grow between plot beats. His writing too, along with co-writer C. Robert Cargill, is sharp yet natural, being scary and tense when it tries, and funny when it means to be (the reactions of the sparse audience were more pronounced than most movies with a fuller crowd).
The performances, from a mostly teenage cast of unfamiliar faces, stand out. In our current Stranger Things world, Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw, as well as the other young actors in smaller roles, play on that nerdy nostalgia, albeit in a more grounded and realistic manner. McGraw is the real highlight as Gwen, stealing every scene she’s in with her impeccable delivery as a kid who knows the cuss words but hasn’t quite grasped the context of how to use them. Ethan Hawke is one of only two familiar faces in the entire film (the other being Jeremy Davies as Finney and Gwen’s abusive alcoholic father). Hawke keeps his face covered throughout with a series of grotesque devil masks with interchangeable smiles and frowns, à la the comedy and tragedy theater masks. Hawke’s performance behind the mask is troubling and disturbed, a deliciously scary turn.
Initially, the trailer for The Black Phone turned me off. I thought it revealed too much, that there would be no surprises or subtleties left. I’m glad I was wrong, because The Black Phone is a taut horror/thriller that does a lot of things right and earns its thrills, making me a new fan of all involved.
