The Black Phone is a new horror film directed by Scott Derrickson and stars Mason Thames as Finney a young boy in 1978 America who is kidnapped one day by a masked man known only as the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) and he holds Finney in a soundproof cellar underneath his house but on the wall is a black phone that supposedly doesn’t work anymore but rings when Finney is in there and what he hears on the other end he plans to help use to escape his captor.
The Black Phone is a good solid little horror film and like Malignant which came out last year is best seen in a dark cinema on a Friday night as you will really get the full impact of the horror moments in this movie when you see it there instead of on TV at home as Derrickson’s horror direction makes full use of the dark cinema environment in a way that is very evocative of the situation, he has Finney captured in.
The cellar looks very good on that big cinema screen and watching it there you feel the emptiness, isolation and cold dark cement on the walls with little or no hope of escape and it helps to generate some good horror moments that work very well in the cinema.
As for the rest of the film it’s pretty good, the 1978 recreation is okay though nothing to really ring about on the telephone and Ethan Hawke is effective as the Grabber with that weird mask the character wears that looks very mad on one face and has a big Joker like grin on the other and that character worked well for me in terms of generating tension regarding whether Finney would be able to escape or not and there were times where I thought to myself he is going to get caught.
Another solid performance is by Madeleine McGraw as Gwen who is Finney’s younger sister and may have some ideas as to help find her missing brother.
And so that was the Black Phone and it’s a good solid little horror film worth seeing on the big screen especially on a dark night session, 3 out of 5.
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