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The Black Phone Movie Review

The Black Phone is a 2022 supernatural horror thriller film directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Ethan Hawke. It’s one of the year’s most entertaining movies.

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“Jesus? What the fuck“

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After being abducted by a child killer and locked in a soundproof basement, a 13-year-old boy starts receiving calls on a disconnected phone from the killer’s previous victims, who all try to help him escape through various means. Based on a short story and adapted so well by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, this is one of those concise screenplays that aren’t overly complicated for better and for worse.

The supernatural premise itself was brilliant, though I wished for even more of those sequences. But everything with the phone was excellent and how only the final plan worked was very realistic. You can just sense the plight and desperation of this kid as he tries and fails to escape so many times.

Mason Thames is so good in the role of Finney. This child actor gave a very promising performance here and Finney is both believable and admirably brave as is his sister. Gwen’s fearless spirit is the heart of the movie and this role was surprisingly emotionally intense. Madeleine McGraw is just wonderful here and hopefully these two get more roles in the future as they were excellent in this flick. Their sibling relationship was just beautiful to witness.

Max being the brother of the killer and trying but failing to connect the dots that he is the one killing these kids was very interesting and it made for another intense subplot. As for Ethan Hawke, he is surprisingly effective in the villain role, a rarity for this actor, but he killed it here, making the strong case that he should revisit this type of role in the future as well.

The Black Phone made great use of the titular device in a couple of different ways. The basement being so well explored made for a very meticulously detailed horror scenario. I wished to have seen a bit more psychological insight into the murderer, but at least he was immensely creepy and the imagery of the black van and balloons was instantly chilling.

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The dead kids were even scarier and some of those jump scares were surprisingly effective. It’s not an ambitious movie overall, but tight editing, deft execution of its thrills and excellent dialogue made for a very engaging movie that deserves an entire franchise of its own as it was that good.