This movie had me on the edge of my seat. My heart was racing and I cried when the movie came to an end because of all the emotions.
“Black Phone” is a movie adaptation to the short story Black Phone written by Joe Hill who is Stephen King’s son. The movie is produced by Blumhouse Productions, a production company well known for horror movies. The movie is directed by Scott Derrickson, who was supposed to be working on the Doctor Strange sequel,, but left that project because he was having creative differences with Marvel Studios.

The protagonist, Finny Shaw (Mason Thames) and his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) live in a suburban Colorado town in the 1970’s. Recently, five boys have gone missing and one of them is a close friend to Finny.

While walking home from school, Finny sees a clown with black balloons in his van. Moving towards the suspicious black vehicle, Finny points out the balloons and the clown offers to do a magic trick for Finny, who says yes. Finny soon learns the magic trick is a ruse to enable the malicious jester to kidnap him. Both Finny and the police quickly understand that he too has been kidnapped by the infamous ‘Grabber’ (Ethan Hawke), who has been abducting boys in Finny’s neighborhood.

The Grabber’s lair is nightmarish: the basement walls are stained with blood, there is a mattress with no sheets and a box spring, a decrepit toilet and black unconnected rotary phone. That same phone soon begins to ring. It becomes clear that it is up to a terrified middle school hero to use the phantom calls and the bare resources of the basement in order to avoid the gruesome fates of the boys on the other side of the line.

The film’s events mostly take place in the basement, however, this subtracts nothing from the enjoyment. The film does a very good job with making a basement, with little in it, be used in so many ways. It proves to be a nearly perfect environment for jump scares and suspenseful moments throughout the film.

I shut my eyes more than a few times.

I have shared only a very small part of the movie because there is so much that happens that will have you guessing to the last minute of the movie. Part of the suspense and mystery is trying to figure out how the Grabber did the gruesome things without being caught.

The director did a good job with keeping the movie and book similar. “Black Phone” is one of many movies that Blumhouse Productions receives high praise for. This movie is worth seeing and I would gladly rewatch it to see if I can catch the things I missed.

Edited by: Alyssa Storm and Maggie Cabrera