Direction: Scott Derrickson
Country: USA
Drastically uneven, the supernatural horror film The Black Phone is told through the eyes of Finney (Mason Thames), a reserved 13-year-old student bullied both in college and at home. The film, shot with a retro look and featuring Ethan Hawke as a deranged part-time magician and child abductor, is an adaptation of a short story by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill, and made head-poundingly boring by co-writter/director Scott Derrickson (Sinister, 2012; Doctor Strange, 2016). Failing in form and subject, this cinematic effort is perhaps too controlled in the proceedings, carrying poor choices in its attempt to alternate scary, dramatic and funny moments without really excelling in any of them.
When abducted by The Grabber and locked in a soundproofed basement, Finney not only counts on the revelatory dreams of his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), but also on an old black rotary dial phone that allows him to talk with the previously victimized kids. The film is a tad better in its rabidly hostile final section, but that phone as a medium of communication doesn’t make much sense to me. Moreover, emotions never rang loud and true - the scenes with the siblings’ father (Jeremy Davies) is a persistent problem throughout, while Hawke, in his second collaboration with Derrickson, hides behind a devil mask and won’t be remembered for this role.
The Black Phone quickly reveals its true face: a clumsy thriller that drags its ambitions far beyond its means, forging ahead with the kind of conviction that will keep horror thriller junkies sitting bolt upright. Are you there? Hello? I’m hanging up now… What a shame!
