Based on the short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone is a tale, not entirely unlike some other Hill stories, that feels VERY much like something his dad would write. You get a nice feeling of Americana from the past (it's set in the late 1970s), you get one main character imbued with some magical power, there are horrible bullies, a parent who likes the bottle more than anything else, and the main villain constantly tries to act as if he is working in service of a higher power. I can't see anyone who liked It, or the stories in Different Seasons, finding too much to dislike here.
Ethan Hawke plays 'The Grabber', a masked kidnapper of children who has been reducing the population of a small part of Denver. He meets his match when he grabs young Finney (Mason Thames), but he doesn't realise just how much help Finney is going to have when it comes to staying alive. Finney has a sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who has been having scarily accurate dreams, which means she may be able to locate her brother. And Finney also has the titular phone, attached to the wall of the relatively bare room he is trapped in. It occasionally rings, something that 'The Grabber' puts down to static electricity, but Finney soon becomes the first person in some time to hear voices through the receiver. Those voices are the previous victims of 'The Grabber', and they have some advice to offer Finney.
Directed by Scott Derrickson, someone who has been delivering solid entertainment for about two decades now (with his last feature being the first Doctor Strange movie), The Black Phone is a supernatural-tinged thriller that works as well as it does thanks to those involved not looking to give themselves any kind of get-out clause. The thriller aspect is solid, and there are moments of tension in between the more predictable plot beats, but the supernatural aspect is equally solid, and it's never dropped in favour of some attempt to tidy everything up in the final scenes.
The script, written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, effectively delivers all of the information required within the first 20-30 minutes to then really focus on the tension for the remainder of the movie. There are some obvious points made that will be referred back to, but there are also some more subtle details. The 103-minute runtime speeds by, but underpinning the basic thrills and chills is a pleasantly unexpected comment, deliberate or not, about giving victims a voice, and keeping their names more relevant and recognisable than the name of their abuser. You get to learn the names of a number of kids as the movie plays out. You don't learn the real name of Hawke's character, unless I missed one quick mention of it anywhere.
While he's not onscreen for that long, Hawke is excellent, and chilling, in his role. His character casts such a long shadow that I never really felt his lack of physical absence to be a problem (although I have seen some mention that they were surprised by how few main scenes he was in). Thames is the one who carries most of the film, giving a performance that marks him out as someone to keep an eye on. The same goes for McGraw, who makes a strong impression as the feisty and gifted Gwen. The other child actors, most often seen depicting their characters as The Talking Dead, also do well. James Ransone is a highlight, playing a coked-up armchair detective who ends up closer to the truth than the people who are officially on the case. The only person who didn't work in their role was Jeremy Davies, stuck with portraying the drunken father who has to deliver some unnecessary clunky backstory that I initially through was going to set up some extended Hill/King cinematic universe.
I really liked this. It's a simple premise that is executed pretty perfectly (it probably helped that most of the film is set in one room, allowing Derrickson and co. to optimise the use of the budget elsewhere), it doesn't run overlong, and it doesn't feel as if the ending is setting up a sequel. None of those things should be so rare in modern cinema, but watching a film getting everything just right serves as a reminder of how rare they are.
8/10
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