The combined duo of Ethan Hawke and director Scott Derrickson take the horror gene back with a grimly entertaining film.
Finney Shaw (Mason Thames) is a shy but clever 13-year-old boy who’s being held in a soundproof basement by a sadistic, masked killer (Ethan Hawke). When a disconnected phone on the wall starts to ring, he soon discovers that he can hear the voices of the murderer’s previous victims — and they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney.
A good movie, especially horror films, needs to have that right balance of slowly setting things up and getting right to the scary stuff. The Black Phone accomplishes this and the reward is an entertaining horror movie with enough details that make up a good story. The parts that are slow don’t feel slow and are well integrated into the moment to keep you calm throughout the suspense while still holding on to those good story elements. The faster parts still have enough time to do their job and luckily don’t go too fast that they were hardly there.
In horror movies, the roles are never really Oscar-winning performances and are often very underwhelming. The Black Phone manages to deliver performances and characters that are evenly matched for the big bad spook. Ethan Hawke’s role as the Grabber is terrifying, his tone is perfect for the messed-up psychos that these roles require and Lifetime movies made famous. Hawke is creepy, calculated, and offsetting which all works out well in the grand scheme. Madeleine McGraw is feisty, and sincere in her own right as the character we are cheering on, while also delivering the comedic relief really well. Now, for me, Mason Thames is the star of this movie. Thames is vulnerable, tough, balanced, and works so well as a believable protagonist and it was a joy seeing him take on this challenge. For a young role that has a lot of added pressure to it, the direction and acting combined gave me a fantastic lead to invest in.
The thing that helps add to the horror and this story is really the design and setting that they chose. It’s not another broken-down haunted house or some mysterious forest we are told not to step foot in. The Black Phone picks a realistic setting of a neighborhood and plays into it very well. It gives it a loss of security, the safety robbed away as the story unfolds and makes it more engaging, and keeps you focused on trying to figure out where the Gobbler is hiding out. The other part is the lair our protagonist is brought to, which also has those elements that are simplistic and yet eerily uncomfortable to really bring the horror element home.
One of the things I admired about this film is how they were able to balance the story and horror elements. It’s suspenseful, using the story to make you care about the characters and their involvement. The main characters get to have their own troubles which fuel their efforts to overcome the challenges they face, while the voices on the phone get snippets of the story that are incorporated quite well. The horror element felt like those movies back in the 80s-90s, the darker tales of serial killers that are cloaked in mystery, a little suspense, and just the right amount of dread to up the stakes. The jump scares and tactics were not overdone not too foreshadowed, and actually had a purpose that was perfect.
Overall, The Black Phone was a nice surprise that proved not all horror is dead and can still be fun and entertaining while still keeping elements of the genre alive. The film had a good pace that allowed for the story and horror to provide a key foundation for acting to launch off and really make it entertaining and suspenseful. The Black Phone is not without its limitations, mostly due to the overzealous trailers, but these are still manageable given how good of a balanced and engaging the story is.
The Black Phone is now playing only in theaters.
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