The Black Phone: Creepy Child-Abduction Thriller Disturbs as Only Child-Abduction Thrillers Can

By Thom Ernst

Rating: A-

The Black Phone doesn’t disappoint, although it delivers in ways unexpected. And though it takes time, the payoff is worth the effort put into packing up old expectations and unpacking new. But fair warning: The Black Phone is not the easy-to-digest horror film you might think. 

Anticipating, as I have, the arrival of Scott Derrickson's film leads me to expect disappointment. I'm so quickly misled by tantalizing previews, a filmmaker's potential, and any story based on solid source material—the source material here being a short story by Joe Hill, Stephen King's prolific, arguably better-writing son).

Then there is the creepy-as-f**k poster of Ethan Hawke as The Grabber (a dismally understated name for a serial child murderer) in a skeletal clown mask, part plaster molding, part powdered makeup highlighted by oversized dark-framed glasses.

Derrickson is not new to genre films, having proven himself to be capable of handling scary with The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and Sinister (2012). He also has a Canadian connection having co-produced Atom Egoyan's unfairly maligned Devil's Knot. If a theme is found in Derrickson's work, it is the child in peril. The Black Phone is consistent with that theme.

The Black Phone is a kid-powered film—a Goonies-like matinee-style adventure with bullying, domestic violence, and themes of youth empowerment. The young cast is led by Mason Thames (Evel, For All Mankind) as Finney, a 13-year-old boy tricked into the Grabber's van and locked in a soundproof basement with nothing but a mattress, a toilet, a few discarded rolled-up rugs, and a useless black phone. Only the phone has a paranormal link to past victims.

The film also stars Madeline McGraw, already an eight-year industry veteran at 14, who plays Gwen, Finney's feisty, foul-mouthed, tougher younger sister. Gwen has the unwelcomed gift of visualizing dreadful truths about the kidnapping and murder of a group of local boys.

"My dreams are sometimes right," she says.

Gwen's familiarity with details of the crimes draws the attention of the police and the paranoia of an unstable father. Gwen relies on her older brother's protection, wisdom, and affections.

Thames, who has less on-camera experience than his co-star, draws from a pool of persecuted yet sympathetic characters. Finney's challenge is to stand up for himself—at first from the school bullies, then his father, and later the creepy old plaster-powdered face of the Grabber.

Like McGraw, whose voice and energy begin as grating, Finney eases into a character audiences can readily embrace. Both McGraw and Thames give the film characters worthy of audiences rooting for.

Then, as if pushed from a cliff, Derrickson deep dives from the heights of adventure into a dark abyss with cruel and horrifying depictions of violence inflicted on children, not just by the Grabber but schoolmates and family members. Granted, the Grabber's threats are decidedly final and imply sexual violence—which holds his place as the top villain.

But brutal scenes of bullying and of a parent lashing their child with a belt make for disturbing competition. Perhaps because domestic violence feels closer to home to far too many. The Black Phone is a powerful argument for adding trigger warnings into film descriptions.

Not much is done with Hawke's character, a disappointment given that Hawke, when on camera, positions himself perfectly as a deliriously manipulating villain driven by evidence of his actions rather than concrete plot points provided by the script.

No doubt Derrickson has a rationale behind the film's division of school and domestic violence with the violence of a sub-basement level villain like The Grabber. But the message doesn't warrant the time Derrickson dedicates to establishing that "normalized" violence is a far more insidious crime than a rampant child-killer. On the other hand, he's probably right.

Ultimately The Black Phone is an immensely satisfying film primed to have audiences cheering in the cinema.

The Black Phone. Directed by Scott Derrickson. Starring Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, and Madeleine McGraw. Opens in theatres June 24.