The Black Phone review: Cringeworthy performances hold back the horror

Horror movie Black PhoneThe film takes place in 1978. This choice is not accidental. It’s an excuse for director Scott Derrickson to use the same type of blaring ’70s needle-drops — in this case, the nostalgic sounds of The Edgar Winter Group, Pink Floyd, Sweet, and Chic — also seen in Warner Bros’ recent two-part adaptation of Stephen King’s It. The film’s period setting lends authenticity to the scenes of children beating up on each other and bullying one another with no adult intervention. That leads to the most effective product of the film’s period setting: a palpable sense of danger.

The late ’70s wasn’t quite the peak era for serial killings in America. (That didn’t happen until the mid-’80s.) However, high profile cases were reported in that period. These stories, along with televised murder trials in which many of the victims were tried, and an increase in crime rates combined, helped to fuel paranoia. Attitudes about child rearing hadn’t yet caught up to this anxiety, though. And with the “Stranger Danger” campaigns of the ’80s still a few years away, 1978 was prime time for unsupervised kids being dragged into unmarked vans.

Based on a brief story by Locke & Key NOS4A2Joe Hill is the authorBlack PhoneThis fear is exploited early, with large shots of vans hiding behind a gaggle of children walking back to school and close-ups on missing-children flyers posted on local bulletin boards. Siblings Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) are well aware of the rumors behind those disappearances, attributed to a local boogeyman known as “The Grabber.”

Kid victim Finney Shaw (Mason Thames) stands alone in a dim room, holding a black phone, in The Black Phone.

A common superstition says that anyone who says The Grabber’s name aloud will be the next to get snatched. Finney is a believer in this myth. This makes him vulnerable to ridicule from his younger sister Gwen. His fear is justified. His best friend and closest confidant, Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora), is a strong kid who enjoys horror films. Then, he falls prey to The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), fresh from a previous villainous run in MCU. Moon Knight). Finney is then kidnapped and wakes up in concrete cells in his basement in an unidentified house.

Most of the film takes place in The Grabber’s basement, like the entirety of Hill’s original story. Here, Finney communicates with the disembodied voices of The Grabber’s five previous victims through the Black phone with the title. (The phone rings even though it has its cord cut. Spooky!) Each of these boys tried to escape The Grabber in his own way, and each of them rings Finney to offer him tips on how to survive where they couldn’t. The key is not to resist; as one boy explains, “If you don’t play, he can’t win.”

These elements can be spine-chilling. All of these elements can be spine-chilling.Black PhoneIt is difficult to believe that the movie’s main character, Bruce Willis, has an uneasy feeling of helplessness. This is especially evident in slow-motion overhead shots where he glides over large groups of flashlight-wielding adults, looking for the children they know are dead. This movie shows how institutions are failing children at every level: Many parents have a history of alcoholism or abuse, while others may be absent and even abusive. Detectives are so incompetent, all their best clues come from Gwen’s prophetic dreams. (Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son. No wonder there’s a child with mental powers in the mix.)

Despite the sense of morbid certainty, however Black Phone It is chaotic. It is the acting that’s most problematic. They range from puzzlingly bizarre to downright disgusting. Jeremy Davies is especially bad as Finney and Gwen’s drunk dad, whose slurring and screaming doesn’t register as authentically patheticOder threatening. Hawke can also be too scattered to make it crediblely frightening. We first meet The Grabber when his face was painted white. His voice is high and affective, reminding us of The Grabber. Atlanta’s Teddy Perkins. Weird, right? What’s he trying to signify, and how does it fit into his psychosis? Doesn’t matter — that’s the first and last time that character detail will crop up in the film.

Ethan Hawke in his demon mask as the serial child-murderer The Grabber in The Black Phone

Hawke alternates between childlike innocence with a deep growling voice in later scenes. However, he does not have the same level of commitment that other actors display. Think James McAvoy, putting himself in his many personalities. SplitThis is an example. And with a mask covering at least half of his face at all times, an intense vocal performance really would have helped The Grabber and his twisted game of “naughty boy” elicit gasps from the audience instead of chortling.

Outside the basementBlack Phone’s tonal issues get even worse. There’s nothing as egregious in the film as the infamous “Angel of the Morning” vomiting-leper sequence inIt: Chapter 2. but the film’s oscillations between comedy and horror are similarly unearned and ineffective. Jump scares are not only distracting from the repetitive footage of Finney on the phone, but they also add visual interest.Black Phone manages to preserve everything that made Hill’s short story so creepy and undermine it at the same time.

Black PhoneThe film debuts on June 24 in the theaters