The Black Phone, written and directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose), and based on the short story by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son), is more than just the average gore fest, serial killer movie. The film additionally showcases childhood resilience, harkening back to horror when children were in charge of their fate. It visits a time in America with children's faces plastered on milk cartons; the fear of a psychopath kidnapping hordes of children in a van was real, and a faceless monster could drive down the most ordinary street.
This story's villain is the Grabber (Ethan Hawke), a kidnapper whose victims' faces are plastered all over the small Denver suburb, which is the film's location. In his matte black van filled with black balloons as a sort of homage to films like It and The Silence of the Lambs, he poses as a magician and, using a phony magic trick, charms little boys, then incapacitates and abducts them. The whole town is on edge, waiting for the Grabber's next victim; it turns out to be thirteen-year-old Finney Blake (Mason Thames). The movie's central focus is Finney's escape attempt and the black broken telephone in which he communicates with the former victims of his captors. It's a movie that lets one imagine the villain's backstory and crimes while rooting for the victim's escape. Although it doesn't hand the audience every piece of information, it holds its mystery and intrigue, and that's the point of high-quality horror. Finney's younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), a clairvoyant, leads the police investigation and is entwined in a sub-plot about their sometimes-violent alcoholic father.
Hawke kills as the Grabber. He previously teamed up with Derrickson in Sinister, and in The Black Phone his portrayal of the Grabber is terrifying. Though he wears a mask throughout the film, it cannot hide just how scary he is as he slings his body around with every inflection oozing terror. The young actors eek out their moments of terror and heartbreak without ever feeling stagey or overdramatic. There is an honesty in their performances and a feeling of a brother-sister bond. The audience wants to root for these kids.
Children do much of the heavy lifting in this film, and a theme that permeates the film is that children can only rely on each other in a world where adults are unreliable, absent, or cruel. What is refreshing, especially in the horror genre, is that ultimately the children aren't exclusively victims in this movie, wrestling to take back their power. It is extremely effective, lifting the movie beyond standard horror fare into a film worthy of a full-price admission ticket.