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Friday, October 14, 2022

The Black Phone (2022)

Set in 1978 Colorado, a masked serial child abductor (Ethan Hawke) called The Grabber prowls the streets of his Denver neighborhood kidnapping adolescent boys. His latest victim (Mason Thames) uses a disconnected phone to communicate with the deceased previous victims in order to discover a means of escape. Based on the short story by Joe Hill and directed by Scott Derrickson (THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE). The film was a box office success which is understandable but more inexplicably, it also received mostly positive reviews. While there are a few genuinely intense moments, overall I found it rather silly. There's a scene of child abuse with a creepy father (Jeremy Davies) beating the crap out of his small daughter (Madeleine McGraw, who's best thing about the movie) that I found more horrifying than any of the Grabber scenes! Since the film was a hit, I've no doubt we'll be seeing a sequel soon which I'll be skipping. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate it, there's an artfulness about it but really, it's just another horror movie. I suspect I'm not the demographics for a movie like this. It's more the horror equivalent of a YA novel. With James Ransone and Miguel Cazarez Mora.

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1 comment:

  1. Mike's Movie RoomOctober 15, 2022 at 1:23 AM

    I never would have gone to see this movie if I weren't a huge fan of Ethan Hawke. From that standpoint, it was a bit of a disappointment. Hawke did a good job, but, really, anybody could have done the role as well as he did. There was nothing that made him stand out. The rest of the movie just wasn't my style, so I guess I'm not included in the demographics either. You are so right about the scenes of abuse with the father. That was hard to watch. In fact, most of it I didn't watch. I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to take in those images. The young kids were both decent actors, and I did care about what was happening to them. The violence level was not nearly as high as I was expecting, which was a relief. If there is a new franchise in the making, I won't be attending. I will admit that I enjoyed Sinister, which, again, I bought because of Mr. Hawke. It isn't a movie I will watch again soon, but it is an effective horror movie.

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