The Black Phone
Scott Derrickson’s abduction thriller is a nifty, accomplished affair that unsettles more than it terrifies.
Never talk to strangers… Ever.
It’s pretty clear from the start that The Black Phone is an abduction thriller. Besides, the premise is announced on the BBFC’s opening certification card (in the UK), along with “strong threat, violence and language.” But in order to sustain audience engagement and narrative drive, abduction thrillers are hard to pull off effectively, particularly when the plot revolves around an abductee locked in an empty room. Here, there’s a twist in that the said room is haunted and that the prisoner’s little sister is psychic. At least, Gwen Shaw (Madeleine McGraw) has revelatory dreams and the local police trust in her visions. The downside is that Gwen’s abusive, alcoholic father (the always creepy Jeremy Davies) forbids her from talking about her night-time imaginings and will thrash her raw if she does.
The year is 1978 in North Denver, the original stomping ground of the film’s writer-director Scott Derrickson. This is a time when the Bee Gees and Sweet were in the charts and even the bullies of Northwest High sported the effeminate hairstyles of Robin Gibb and Brian Connolly. Finney Shaw (Mason Thames, with a young Jesse Eisenberg vibe) gets bullied a lot, when he’s not being beaten by his own father (Davies). But a schoolmate in a headband called Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora) comes to his aid, so when the latter is abducted in a black van in a blizzard of black balloons, Finney is devastated. Finney’s sister Gwen foresaw the balloons in her dream, but when Finney himself is snatched off the street, her dreams start to dry up and she begins to doubt Jesus (and swear at him).
Scott Derrickson, who previously brought us the hackneyed and tedious Deliver Us from Evil (2014) and the witty, wildly engaging Doctor Strange (2016), has rather covered his bases here. He brings us brutal bullies, domestic abuse, a serial killer and some really unnerving masks (courtesy of Tom Savini and Jason Baker). And that isn’t the half of it. Here, as scenarist, in collaboration with C. Robert Cargill, Derrickson has summoned up a world that feels both familiar and different. Certainly the tropes of the trade are tweaked in uncomfortable ways, while the dialogue contains a tang of the unusual (Gwen’s discourse is punctuated with phrases like “so crucial” and the insult “jerkface”). However, the most unsettling line of all comes from Ethan Hawke when he says, “I just wanted to look at you…” So The Black Phone is a disturbing mix of the generic and the unexpected. It’s a neat little thriller, more likely to disconcert than to terrify, but that in itself is an achievement. And what of the title? Well, to reveal that would be a giveaway.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone, Ethan Hawke, E. Roger Mitchell, Troy Rudeseal, Miguel Cazarez Mora, Rebecca Clarke, J. Gaven Wilde, Spencer Fitzgerald, Tristan Pravong.
Dir Scott Derrickson, Pro Jason Blum, Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, Screenplay Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, from the short story by Joe Hill, Ph Brett Jutkiewicz, Pro Des Patti Podesta, Ed Frédéric Thoraval, Music Mark Korven, Costumes Amy Andrews, Sound Paul Hackner and D. Chris Smith, Masks Tom Savini and Jason Baker.
Blumhouse Productions/Crooked Highway-Universal Pictures.
103 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 24 June 2022. Cert. 15.
