Film Review: The Black Phone plays on the primal fear around child abduction
Ethan Hawke in The Black Phone.
★★★☆☆
Set in Denver in 1978, (16s) opens with the city’s children terrified that they will be the next victim of The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), who has already abducted a number of children before he swoops down on Finney (Mason Thames).
Locked in a soundproofed basement, Finney has no way of communicating with the outside world: the disconnected phone on the wall seems to have left there simply to tantalise The Grabber’s victims. But then the phone rings, and Finney hears the whispering voice of a dead child offering him advice about how he might be able to escape …
The supernatural aspects of Scott Derrickson’s horror are strongly redolent of Stephen King, so it’s no surprise to learn that the movie is based on a short story by King’s son, Joe Hill.
It’s a seductive blend, in theory at least. The reality of child abduction is chilling enough, but the voices from beyond the grave lend the story a ghostly quality that diverts the viewer’s attention away from the whys and wherefores of child abduction: The Grabber, despite his loquacity as he waxes lyrical from behind a series of spooky masks, never offers a clue as to why he is compelled to murder children.
What is interesting, however, is that the threats Finney is subjected to in the basement strongly echo how he and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) are treated by their alcoholic and abusive father Terrence (Jeremy Davies), which suggests that Finney is only in marginally more danger when he finds himself at the mercy of The Grabber.
Hawke spends most of the movie hidden behind those masks, but Mason Thames is brilliant at capturing the vulnerability of the petrified Finney, while Madeleine McGraw steals the show as the feisty, foul-mouthed Gwen who refuses to give up on her big brother.
(cinema release)
