“The Black Phone” (2022) is a film adaptation of a Joe Hill short story. The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) kidnaps Finney (Mason Thomas), who gets calls from the Grabber’s previous victims on a disconnected phone. Will Finney be able to use their tips to escape? The filmmaking team behind “Sinister” (2012), director and co-screenwriter Scott Derrickson, co-screenwriter Robert Cargill and Hawke, reunite for another hit. Think John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany” except framed in the horror genre.
The driving force behind “The Black Phone” is to compel Finney to fight back and save himself from a serial killer, which is the most socially acceptable way to do it without crossing any boundaries. Before Finney is kidnapped, he faces a slew of challenges and monsters that he believes that he cannot overcome without outside assistance. The implication is that Finney is the best boy, but he lacks confidence to bring everything together: his brains, his personality, and his anger at being victimized and watching others get victimized, especially his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who is subject to the most onscreen violence, but bounces back from it undeterred. Finney’s closeness with his sister, most distinguishes him from the other victims, but does not compel him to action despite it being obvious that she needs all the help that she can get because she is outmatched. I wish that the film had explored Finney’s motivation behind his disdain for violence because it is not being afraid of getting hurt.
Before the Grabber takes him, Finney faces many monsters: his alcoholic abusive father (Jeremy Davies) and a group of bullies. While the Grabber is hella disturbing, the explicit threat that he poses, merciless beatings with a belt, dad already embodies. If not for the Grabber’s implicit unspoken threats, Finney would not find him challenging at all. In one sequence, Finney must move in silence so as not to wake the Grabber, a skill he already achieved with his father’s frequent hangovers. The Grabber is a more socially acceptable target for Finney to fight since most people frown on patricide, but he really is a narrative middleman for Finney to work out all his issues. The real horror is that a father is barely indistinguishable from a serial killer yet one of the two’s behavior is not punished. Maybe the film must be a horror story because the filmmakers could not make a story facing that quotidian terror.
“The Black Phone” made a wise choice in showing only two of the Grabber’s victims being taken who played the biggest role in Finney’s conscious life—people whom Finney admired and considered better than himself. It makes the Grabber seem more daunting. Also when the Grabber takes Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora), it exacerbates the bullying situation and acts as a catalyst to seeing if Finney will stand up for himself. The victims are more facets of Finney’s personality than standalone characters. Bruce Yamada (Tristan Pravong) is Finney’s jock self, the potential ladies’ man, most popular guy in school potential. Robin is his protector and tactician. Paper Boy (Jacob Moran) is his innocent self. Vance (Brady Hepner) is his anger. Griffin (Banks Repeta) is most like his current self, compliant, unwilling to fight back. They all function as motivational speakers for Finney to get his act together though Vance explicitly rejects encouragement as a motivation. They are vengeful ghosts, but the ghost doth protest too much.
If “The Black Phone” has any issues, it is whom the film deems acceptable as being shown as a victim of violence. Gwen gets unflinchingly brutalized on screen. The two minority victims get fridged first, which felt like a bad throwback to old horror films and was particularly difficult with respect to Bruce. I did give a little side eye to the film for naming the only Asian character Bruce and later when the characters reference “Enter the Dragon” (1973), it was intentional, but it also triggered memories of Jeffrey Dahmer kidnapping and murdering Konerak Sinthasomphone with the police’s approval. It was a relief that the Grabber’s other victims were white, not just Finney. White male bodies are later shown in flashes postmortem and are more brutalized, but it is glimpses.
“The Black Phone” makes some great visual references to other horror classics. The look of the basement where Finney is being held looks like a scene from “Sinister.” When Gwen searches for her brother, it feels like a shoutout to “It: Part One” (2017), which makes sense since Joe Hill is Stephen King’s kid.
“The Black Phone” has a supernatural backdrop to the film explicitly embodied in Gwen. The tension is between mental illness and genuine psychic ability, but implicitly, it appears that Finney and the Killer share the same gift though they perceive this gift differently. Later Gwen as an adult must become a television editor because her psychic powers look like home videos. Finney and the Killer use the phone to focus their perception, and Finney only occasionally sees the specters. I wished that this part of the story was explored more, and upon further reflection, Gwen is endearing, but extraneous. I found myself imagining why so many psychic powers in this neighborhood, and if Marvel does take over the world, maybe mutants?
Hawke saves “The Black Phone” from plot holes. If I think about the Grabber as an armchair profiler, he seems cobbled together and not like a cohesive psycho. The film gives us enough personal details about the Grabber to give us a sense about him as a person, but never connects the dots, which I found frustrating. Seriously what does he do for a living? As a New Yorker, real estate interests me, and I wanted to know more about the Grabber’s set up. How did he swing that? Hawke gives his all to the creep. It is as if he grabbed a segmented mask from “The Purge” (2013). Hawke could be yet another incarnation of the Joker if he wanted to make some easy money. He borrows some elements from Joaquin Phoenix’s “Joker” (2019) and Jack Nicholson’s “Batman” (1989). He turns his voice on a dime and while I know that he is lying when he tells Finney that he won’t hurt him, he sounds sincere. Also random side note: those eggs looked amazing!
“The Black Phone” ends on a pat note as if hanging out in a serial killer’s basement is like going to a spa weekend and will solve all your problems! Your dad won’t be an alcoholic because that is how that works-addiction is about attitude change, not. All the bullies won’t fuck with you for obvious reasons. And you will enjoy the whispers around you. What is he, Spider-Man? I’m thinking that you don’t leave that experience without some PTSD, but Finney only leaves filled with joy.
There are rumors about a sequel. What? Because the supernatural element was left ambiguous, I suppose that part of the story could be fleshed out. Considering how much “Sinister 2” (2015) sucked, I hope not. On the other hand, Joe Hill, who goes hard in his stories, was not involved in that sequel. I would see it. Those kids could act.
