If you’ve ever wished bullied kids had a literal dead-children support line they could call for backup, The Black Phone is here to make that oddly specific dream come true. Scott Derrickson takes Joe Hill’s short story and stretches it into a full-length nightmare about trauma, abuse, and the most cursed piece of rotary hardware in cinematic history—and somehow, it all works.
This is one of those horror movies that feels nasty in concept but surprisingly warm at the core. Yes, it’s about a child killer in 1970s Denver, kidnapped kids, and a basement that screams “no resale value,” but it’s also about resilience, sibling love, and the radical notion that sometimes the final girl is actually a furious little sister with a Bible, a bike, and the mouth of a longshoreman.
Finney Blake vs. The World (and the Basement)
Mason Thames’ Finney is heartbreakingly believable as the kid who’s learned to survive by keeping his head down. At school, he gets bullied. At home, he gets a drunk dad. In the neighborhood, there’s a guy snatching kids in a black van, so, you know, terrific era all around.
Finney’s not a “chosen one” in the traditional sense. He’s shy, anxious, and physically outmatched by everyone around him. The film wisely doesn’t magically turn him into a tiny action hero; it lets him be scared, shaky, and soft-spoken. Which makes it all the more satisfying when he finally decides, with some spectral coaching, that he’s done being prey.
The basement where he’s held is delightfully miserable: soundproofed, grimy, and mostly empty except for a mattress, a toilet, and the eponymous black rotary phone mounted on the wall—disconnected but occasionally ringing anyway, as all good cursed phones should.
Every ring becomes a lifeline… and a reminder that you’re only getting calls because the previous users didn’t live to leave Yelp reviews.
The Grabber: Clown Mask, Vibes of Pure Nope
Ethan Hawke as The Grabber is one of the film’s biggest strengths and most unsettling gifts. He spends the entire movie behind a series of bone-white masks, each with swappable facial expressions—smiling, frowning, horned—like an evil Mr. Potato Head of emotional damage.
Hawke never overplays it. His Grabber is:
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Weirdly soft-spoken
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Unpredictable
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Childish in the worst possible way
He oscillates between creepy affection and sudden rage, like a predator who doesn’t fully understand his own pathology. The mask does a lot of the visual work, but it’s Hawke’s voice—gentle, coaxing, then suddenly sharp—that really digs under your skin.
And the film wisely doesn’t turn him into a puzzle to be solved. We get hints of a backstory, but no tidy explanation. He’s not a tragic misunderstood soul; he’s a monster, full stop. The kids are the story. He’s the obstacle. As it should be.
The Kids Are Alright (Except for the Whole Being Dead Part)
The conceit of the black phone—letting Finney talk to the Grabber’s previous victims—is where this could’ve gone very wrong, very fast. Dead kids on the line? That’s a short stroll away from cheap melodrama.
Instead, the ghosts are written like actual boys, not angelic trauma props. They’re:
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Snarky
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Frustrated
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Brave
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Still kind of jerks in a very teenage way
Each call gives Finney a piece of the escape puzzle: a broken grate, a hidden cable, a loose tile, a freezer. None of these alone are enough—but together, they become his survival kit. It’s like a morbid group project where the grading rubric is “live or die.”
The phone becomes both a metaphor and a weapon—literally, by the end. Packing the receiver with dirt to turn it into a makeshift mace is one of those “audibly fist-pump on your couch” moments. Especially when all the dead boys’ voices join the line, taunting the Grabber as Finney finally beats the ever-loving hell out of him.
Is it cathartic? Oh yes. Is it dark that you’re cheering a teen snapping a killer’s neck with a telephone cord while spectral victims talk trash? Also yes. Welcome to horror.
Gwen Blake: Patron Saint of Profanity and Visions
If Finney is the heart, Gwen is the movie’s spine. Madeleine McGraw walks off with every scene she’s in like it’s shoplifting. Gwen has inherited their late mother’s psychic gift—visions in her dreams that connect to the Grabber’s crimes. She also has:
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A backpack
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A pink raincoat
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A vocabulary that would get most adults banned from polite company
Watching this tiny girl scream at Jesus for not sending clearer dreams is one of the film’s great joys. She’s not some frail horror-movie clairvoyant; she’s a kid who prays, swears, rides her bike, and does her own detective work because the adults are either too broken (dad) or too slow (cops) to keep up.
Her visions anchor the procedural side of the story. Every time the film cuts away from Finney’s basement to Gwen’s investigations, it injects momentum and hope. It also keeps the movie from becoming unbearably claustrophobic. The outside world is still searching, still trying, even as Finney’s clock is ticking.
Horror with Bruises and a Beating Heart
What sets The Black Phone apart is how it treats violence and trauma. The kids aren’t just in danger from the Grabber; they’re already bruised by a world that doesn’t protect them. Finney’s father—played with grim, pathetic weight by Jeremy Davies—is emotionally wrecked, abusive, and terrified of his daughter’s gift because it echoes the visions that drove his wife to suicide.
He’s not sympathetic, exactly, but he’s painfully human. The movie doesn’t excuse him; it just acknowledges that monsters come in many forms, and some of them are wearing work shirts and holding belts, not masks.
This layered cruelty means Finney’s victory isn’t just about defeating the Grabber. It’s about learning he doesn’t have to exist purely in survival mode forever. He can stand up. He can fight back. He can be more than what his environment has told him he is. And yes, he can sit next to his crush at the end and casually say, “Call me Finn,” like he didn’t just kill a man with telecom equipment. Growth!
Retro, But Not Rusty
Set in 1978, the film leans into its period setting without turning into a nostalgia ad. The grainy look, the analog tech, the suburbia-of-old details—they all serve the story. It’s a world where:
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Kids roam unsupervised
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Stranger danger is still whispered, not shouted
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Missing posters linger on telephone poles like wallpaper
The black rotary phone itself is a perfect object for horror: heavy, tactile, obsolete, and now thoroughly haunted by association. You’ll never look at one again without half-expecting it to ring with bad news from beyond.
Final Call
The Black Phone pulls off a tough balancing act:
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Grim subject matter without feeling exploitative
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Supernatural elements without losing emotional realism
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A child-serial-killer plot that’s somehow more empowering than nihilistic
It’s scary, but not in a cheap “gotcha” way. It’s grim, but not hopeless. And it’s weirdly, sharply funny in spots, letting kids be kids even in the shadow of horror.
If you like your horror with:
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A strong emotional core
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A genuinely creepy villain
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A supernatural twist that actually serves the story
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And the satisfying thunk of karma delivered via rotary phone
…then answer this one. The dead kids are on the line, and for once, they’re not just asking for justice—they’re helping deliver it.
