Thirteen-year-old Finney Blake (Mason Thames) already has his work cut out for him navigating bullies at school, looking after his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) and avoiding his alcoholic father’s (Jeremy Davies) violent gaze. But when notorious local legend The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) kidnaps Finney, his other troubles soon fade away as he desperately fights to survive his tormentor’s crazed games. Resourcefulness alone won’t save Finney though, he’ll have to rely on the supernatural ghosts of the Grabber’s previous victims, communicating with him through a mysterious disconnected black telephone bolted to the wall of his cell…
Starring: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, E. Roger Mitchell, Troy Rudeseal, James Ransone & Ethan Hawke.
Watch it now in Australian cinemas and on-demand in the US
In his grand return to horror, Scott Derrickson is back with a more personal tale, overflowing with his clear love and adoration of the seventies and the cinema of that period. Having done his proverbial “one for them” in 2016’s Doctor Strange (a film he is clearly still very proud of), The Black Phone feels unabashedly “for him”; a smaller scale abduction thriller with a distinctly Derrickson supernatural horror touch, wrought from a rough and tumble seventies childhood in a crime-filled neighbourhood. It doesn’t push the genre forward in any hugely innovative ways but The Black Phone is a rock solid option for 2 hours of occasionally spooky entertainment.
Here’s the thing: don’t go into this expecting a repeat of 2012’s Sinister, arguably Derrickson’s best film. The Black Phone takes a more subdued approach to its horror, after all, The Grabber isn’t worlds away from the violence Finney is likely to receive from his alcoholic father on a bender (both brandishing belts to horrifying effect). No, despite its supernatural underpinnings, the violence that takes place here is delivered by very real men, with the ghostly elements driving the plot rather than the other way around. Derrickson wisely employs the horror through The Grabber’s total lack of motive; he is completely unhinged and that unpredictability is the scariest thing about him.
There’s an element of M. Night Shyamalan’s Split to it – The Grabber appears bearing food in a sing-song falsely pleasant voice before storming upstairs, returning later with nothing but rage and contempt. But where Split implemented humour in its exploration of the kidnappers psyche, Derrickson seems uninterested in delving that deep, with Ethan Hawke delivering a performance that is all menace, a bumbling, stumbling murder machine with a penchant for showmanship in his abductions. Hawke rarely gets room to stretch beyond this, his face is covered by a terrifying mask for most of the film and the few hints at more to The Grabber beyond his love of murder are quickly abandoned before they pick up any steam. For what he is given Hawke plays the character terrifically but, despite the intense violence we do see, you can’t help but feel it could have been taken further.
Mason Thames, on the other hand, is remarkable as Finney. With only a few smaller roles under his belt, he is given the monumental task of carrying the entire film on his shoulders and does it brilliantly. Finney is instantly endearing as the avatar for Derrickson’s own childhood; a reserved intelligent youngster who is shy and indecisive in the face of danger. Derrickson does a great job at ensuring Finney’s intelligence feels natural – his childish naivety may get him into his mess but he’s smart enough to keep hold of a tool that can aid him – and it never becomes dull or tedious watching him attempt to figure out his situation and frantically try his next escape attempt.
It’s disappointing then, that that intelligence is undercut by some bizarre narrative choices. Finney is offered some pretty easy options to escape his cell early on thanks to his supernatural accomplices, but he only ever seems to haphazardly do what he needs to do. Minor setbacks seem to completely turn him off trying a way out, breaking the illusion at times that this kid is truly desperate to escape and robbing the situation of its tension. There’s a payoff and point to not pursuing these escape options in the third act, but leaps in logic of this magnitude are hard to ignore. Sadder still is the fact that the horror elements are largely relegated to cheesy jump scares, jolting you out of your seat with a bang and a horrifying image, but rarely leaving much of a lasting impression. The overarching air of unease and Ethan Hawke’s chilling performance are enough to keep you suitably uncomfortable, but its disappointing that the man who gave us Sinister is resorting to this level of jump scares.
Despite its flaws, The Black Phone is a wholly entertaining ride from start to finish, anchored by Mason Thames and Ethan Hawke’s endlessly watchable tête-à-tête and some surprisingly hilarious moments from Madeleine McGraw as Finney’s foul-mouthed sister Gwen. It loses momentum at times and the story veers into some hard-to-believe holes from which it never fully escapes but Scott Derrickson continues to prove that he is an exciting talent behind the camera, whether that be a multi-million dollar Marvel blockbuster or a contained, creepy little flick like this. You might not want to rush out to the cinemas to catch The Black Phone but if it eventually rings, pick it up.