The Black Phone (2022) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Scott Derrickson

Starring:  Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone

The Black Phone proves that suspense will always win out over slashing and gore.   As Alfred Hitchcock put it:  Shock is when a bomb explodes.  Suspense is waiting for it to explode.   The Black Phone is scarier because we can only imagine what will happen to Finney (Thames), a teenager kidnapped by the evil man known only as The Grabber (Hawke).   The Grabber has taken numerous kids from a North Denver suburb in 1978 and not one was ever seen again.   We see The Grabber, a part-time magician, driving around in an ominous black van looking for victims to snatch.   He uses a large bunch of black balloons to obscure his crimes from any potential witnesses.   Soon, the victims awaken in a dingy basement with a disconnected black phone hanging on the wall.   

In Finney's case, for reasons never explained, the phone rings and The Grabber's past victims are on the other end, issuing dire warnings and helpful hints to help Finney escape The Grabber's clutches.   The Grabber himself is a creepy man whose face is usually obscured by a mask.   He feigns sympathy and compassion, followed up by false claims that Finney will be going home soon.   We know this will not be the case unless Finney can figure out how to outwit his captor.  

Finney's life before his kidnapping was cruel and cold.   He was regularly bullied at school and his alcoholic father (Davies) abuses he and his sister Gwen (McGraw), who has seen clues in her dreams which may lead to finding Finney and the others.  The supernatural and otherworldly play a huge part in The Black Phone.   I've written before in movies about ghosts that if ghosts can move objects or perform other tasks from beyond the grave, then why can't they just speak to us?   These ghosts do, and they give Finney hope that he may escape their fates.   

The Black Phone has a keen sense of time and place which adds to the terror it creates.   Thames provides us with a sympathetic hero who we want to see escape, while Hawke embodies such sick, irredeemable evil that we root for his demise.  The Black Phone ups the human stakes while dialing down on the blood and violence porn which has plagued slasher films in recent decades.  John Carpenter's Halloween is a brilliant masterwork because it valued suspense over killing.   The Black Phone, set in the same year as the events of Halloween, understands this as well.   What is achieved is true horror.