The Black Phone

A boy Finney goes missing. Obviously, it’s a serial killer, who targets teenage boys, takes him away, and confines him in a room. But then he finds something interesting, a telephone hanging on the wall, starts ringing, through which he can hear the past victims’ voices, who are quite determined to help him from the perilous situation, from which they couldn’t escape.

This is the basic logline of the film.

The film is directed by Scott Derrickson and based on the story Joe Hill, is a different story that’s quite apart from your conventional thrillers. The story has enough pacing, and stuff to keep you entertained and also gives us some piece of thought after watching the entire movie.

Until here it was a spoiler-free review.

I didn’t wanna spoil the whole thing for you, and if you haven’t watched I recommend you to watch, and then read along as the following paragraphs will spoil the story. Here’s the trailer for those who want to check out.

SPOILER ALERT!

Well, what is it about?

While the movie talks about a thrilling story about the boy who escapes from the psychopath with the black phone, the movie also talks about child abuse, especially in the story we can see Finney and Gwen’s dad beating Gwen for believing in her dreams, which most times come true. But the complexity of the problem doesn’t arise from alcoholism or the macho man type of dad that we usually see in most psycho films, but it’s from the love and care of dad, which he beats his daughter, as the story progresses, we understand that Gwen’s mother also dreamt like her, and she started to believe everything she dreamt, ultimately leading to her untimely death. The emotional trauma caused by his wife’s death compels the dad to block the idea of true dreams from her daughter because he says he cannot take another death into account just because of a dream.

Finney does protest inside but doesn’t let his emotions gush out. The same goes with Gwen, who at least tries to show her resentment, with the force of articulation of words, despite being helpless.

But meanwhile, it's such a love, the problem of beating her ruthlessly also creates resentment in the audience just because we know the truth as the story progresses from an omniscient viewpoint.

A plus point of the film is that its cast performed well. Especially Gwen, starred by Madeleine McGraw, performed at her best. Robin starred by Miguel Cazarez Mora also did justice to the character. But I do have some reservations about the acting of Finney Shaw, starred by Mason Thames, and I did think of replacing him would have made the film better.

I also did feel that the movie could have been darker. Because from the trailer or the logline, we will expect more. I did expect more, from the logline but what I got was satisfactory, but not something on par with my expectations.

Moreover, the plot is simply straightforward and doesn’t show any complexity to understand. But its complexity lies with the characters’ emotional states, and how we interpret the meaning offered. The movie is optimistic and ends with and they lived happily ever-after tone, and that the dad promises both Finney and Gwen that he will never abuse them.

The film was an instant success which grossed 150 million dollars against a 16 million budget. The mixed responses gathered were quite natural. I won’t say this is my favorite, but this had some memorable moments, and a unique plot, rather than being a traditional horror, as its genre is defined. It also gives us some form of, satisfaction, and not utter disappointment. To me, it's worth watching once, because the story remains with us for a while even after the climax hit the end.

Comment your take on the movie. Together let’s democratize the review.