The Black Phone

Scott Derrickson is a decent craftsman, and his films always look good. But in The Black Phone, he tries to combine the thriller-style theme of a kidnapper (reality) with a ghost story (fantasy) in a rather more mechanical than creative way, and it doesn’t really work. The ghost-story elements serve only to hinder the plot development. The bad guy is insufficiently scary and underdeveloped. We don’t even find out what his motive is. The dramatic storyline with the weak, violent father is not given enough space. The “someday you will have to stand up for yourself” motif has drive, but it's aimed only at a teen audience. The most stable pillar of the film is young Mason Thames in the lead role. This won’t be the last we’ve heard of him. (08/09/2022)

In my eyes, Scott Derrickson has done it again, and hasn't faltered once in his career, including that piece of craft slavery in the form of a Marvel movie. He's just a smart kid. I could actually do without the supernatural element here, but I understand that it is crucial to the development of the plot. It's not horrifically spooky, but it's finely unsettling, the seventies production design paces flawlessly, and Ethan's masks are creepy enough to make his personality both repulsive and appealing. And on top of that, a double pleasure: the performance of the charismatic boy Mason Thames and the discovery that Jeremy Davies can give a solid performance if the director leads him to do so. I give a shout-out to the musical dramaturgy for Pink Floyd's "On the Run" (from the album "Dark Side of the Moon") at the very end. (06/04/2023)

For a film that was supposed to be one of the highlights of this year's horror season, The Black Phone is terribly basic. There's really nothing extra beyond what the synopsis says and what the trailer showed. I kept hoping that Derrickson and Hill held some sort of ace up their sleeve, but alas. It's well made, it has quality actors and likeable characters, a creepy bad guy, but what's the point when it's more period atmospheric than scary, the rules of how the supernatural works float in a vacuum, the finale lasts about a minute, and the only minor plot surprise elicits raised eyebrows rather than appreciative shock at the screenwriter's abilities. A watchable genre film, but we should demand more from Scott Derrickson's cinematic horror. (20/07/2022)

He's a bad boy, that Ethan, but let's be honest, without his meaty glam rocker, this would hardly be a slightly scarier episode of a cartoon. There are a couple of ideas in there, but they are not the most polished I’ve ever seen. Derrickson surprises us a bit through the fluctuation of tone, and the goofball elements are really out of place. Overall, I wasn’t really blown away by it. Deliver Us From Evil may have been corny as hell, but it had a dense atmosphere. This film oscillates between a cute Stranger Things ballad and a feeble genre hybrid. I am not going to give him any credit next time. (19/07/2022)

Solid retro psychological-detective-supernatural kidnap thriller. The Black Phone was talked about as one of the potential horror films of the year, unfortunately that didn't happen, but it's still a solid film and one of the better ones. Scott Derrickson is well-versed in the horror genre and is one of the better filmmakers of the last decade, but I found his previous horror release Deliver Us from Devil to be sharper. From the start, The Black Phone impresses with its chilling 1970s visuals that add to the sultry atmosphere of gloomy Denver, where there is a man who kidnaps local children and kills them known as the Grabber. It has that feel of an proper crime drama, too bad we don’t get to really enjoy the investigation itself. The film is not officially based on real events, but it’s inspired by them. The main characters include sibling duo Gwen and Finney, both impress with strong child acting. Gwen in particular steals all the scenes for herself in the beginning of the film – the conversation with her father is downright uncomfortable and emotionally powerful to the point of being Oscar-worthy. Finney is the boy who is kidnapped and even though he comes across as a pushover at first, he shows skill and talent as the story progresses. The film flows at a slower pace, there are purely only two horror scenes, and they are two decently executed scares. Ethan Hawke is solid as the bad guy but I agree he could have had more space and the mythology around him could have been explained to the viewer in more detail. I enjoyed the concept where Finney has the ability to communicate through a black phone with previous Grabber victims. Pulling it up to above average for me was the nicely paced finale, where there was a bit of violence in a well put together duel. All in all, the film builds more on atmosphere, acting performances and confident direction, but those expecting first-rate horror may be slightly disappointed. Story 4/5. Action 2/5, Humour 2/5, Violence 2/5, Fun 4/5 Music 4/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 4/5, Suspense 4/5, Emotion 3/5, Actors 4/5. 7/10. (17/07/2022)

Hill's collection Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead is pleasantly old-fashioned, surprisingly often discontented, and chilling in several places. Overall, however, its title promises something different, specifically a compilation of small unpleasant horrors that an uninformed reader would expect from King's son. The Black Telephone, on the other hand, is one of the weaker pieces in the book. It is a short suggestive story full of only partially fulfilled potential, with two successful parts, and what harms it the most is the fact that it takes place in one location. Promising a film adaptation seemed like a very bold idea to me, but Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill surpassed themselves. They dug deep into the story, where in the original only names jumped out, they added significant plot lines, and they turned Gwen, played by the incredible Madeleine McGraw, into an equal main protagonist. And yet I'm not sure about the way they explain key events. In many places, they only mention one sentence (the mother's death, the father's motivation, conditions in Finney's prison, the killer's convenient blindness towards broken or tidy things, the willingness of the police to listen to unorthodox solutions), but they rarely expand on it. Of course, I was able to read between the lines in this case, but it's a solution in the style of "If I see it there, then it's there". But if it was really just viewer theories and lucky writing coincidences, it would be dead ends or even plot holes, and that would be a shame in this case. So I lean towards the version that everything is perfectly thought out and that's exactly how I should feel – torn. (17/08/2022)

Like the source material, which is not one of the best pieces in the collection (in fact, I didn't remember the story at all, unlike others), the film version of The Black Phone is not a groundbreaking work. Actually, it’s not even horror, rather a thriller with supernatural elements. Is it a shame? Quite the contrary! The film is so well shot and acted (the child actors, the brother and sister, are perfect) that it is strongest in those scenes where nothing supernatural happens and it’s simply about people. The supernatural is important, but in the exact spirit of Hill, it's not really explained properly and serves more as a deus ex machina, which was fine with me. The excellent period atmosphere and the superb villain took care of the rest. (23/07/2022)

The screenplay is an adaptation of a 20-page short story yet seems like it crammed in a four-pound novel. Lots of unrelated scenes, an unnecessary number of supporting characters, implausible interactions and relationships, and most importantly, the whole thing is totally littered with plot holes. Scott Derrickson boasts that unlike other directors, for him a test audience is not an annoying obstacle but a creative collaborator, and this film looks it. (15/10/2022)

Scott Derrickson has got the touch like few others. It's shot in exactly that unsettling thriller tone, plus it has top-notch sound design. Narratively, it's maddeningly unbelievable (from the kid fights to the phone gags to the final showdown), but overall it holds together by the skin of its teeth in some weird way. It's not much, but for unpretentious one-time viewing it's doable. [60%] (18/07/2022)