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The Black Phone - Official Trailer

R6Rider

Gold Member


Finney Shaw, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer's previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn't happen to Finney.

The film stars Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone, and Ethan Hawke. The screenplay is by Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, based on the short story by Joe Hill. The producers are Jason Blum, Scott Derrickson, and C. Robert Cargill, with Ryan Turek and Christopher H. Warner serving as executive producers.

The Black Phone, directed by Scott Derrickson, arrives in theaters on February 4, 2022.

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Looks interesting, but the trailer is showing a lot. Honestly, stop watching the trailer at around 1:57 lol.
 
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Cattlyst

Member
That trailer basically just showed the entire movie. SMH. My wife is into true crime, she might enjoy this film. Also Hawke is awesome, interested to see him in this role.
Yeah the trailer gave too much away imo. Kinda spoils it. Interesting premise though.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I like Ethan Hawke, and I think Scott Derrickson has decent chops as a director, but Sinister just wasn't good.

Hawke tried hard but I'm sorry but the way his character acted based on his supposed occupation was fundamentally wrong psychologically. A true crime writer is going to get exposed to some pretty gnarly stuff, so why's he cringing like a pre-teen girl at crime footage? They don't. It was just bad writing where the needs of the plot solely guide behaviour, and even a talented thesp like Hawke can't sell that.
 
Watched this recently and...it was nothing special, just OK, i was expecting something (much) better due to all the hype surrounding it (and its almost 2 year delay).

The problem is that it's not scary at all, i would say that it's more of a thriller than a "horror" movie and the story - what little there is to it - feels incomplete.
No real motivations explained regarding some characters, the "lore" is completely absent behind the "grabber" (who is he ? what are the masks about ? Why is he wearing them ?) and some (always convenient) plot holes. I like ambiguous things/themes, not everything needs to be explained, in fact, i hate when movies try to do that, it's just that this felt like they couldn't be arsed about and/or they needed it to be at a very specific runtime.

Also : the fact that "Ethan All-time American dad® Hawke" plays the part of the grabber (i.e : bad guy) is just...nope, the guy is one of the nicest dudes in Hollywood and a good actor all around but for these roles you either need a completely unknown actor or someone that plays these type of "wacky" roles - the more detached from being "nice" the better, it's like casting - i don't know - Steve martin for the role of a serial killer, it just doesn't work (for me), in fact, i find it pretty funny that Jeremy Davies plays a normal role in this one (without the usual Jeremy Davies jazz hand(s)® and 8547345 speech pauses per minute) while Hawke plays the bad/weird character, it should've been the other way around since Davies can get genuinely creepy, Hawke on the other hand...

Cinematography was spot-friggin'-on, as was the direction, music (late 70's authenticity) and acting (generally speaking) but, in the end, the whole thing feels way too shallow and generic with the usual "dead kids' ghosts trying to help other kid" trope, it's a shame really as it could have been kinda special, haven't read the short story TBH but the movie's story just feels empty, in the end it feels like yet another "coming of age" and "trying to find you true self" kind of movie with some "horror" elements sprinkled here and there as opposed to a gritty, dark and morbid one (taking into consideration the Child serial killer thing).

it's a solid 5.5-6/10 film, it just didn't manage to grab me the way i expected it to do.

Even the recent-ish Antlers and it comes at night (2017) which were both kind of mediocre were better than this IMO.

Aaaaand...the search for a new good horror film continues
 

VN1X

Banned
Seen this last week and yeah, at first I thought it had potential but then it quickly starts to lose its way, trying to juggle multiple elements without succeeding at any of them. It's like baby's first thriller basically. Possibly decent if you are just getting into movies but really mediocre (at best) if you've seen everything. Ethan Hawke was wasted in this.

Just watch Prisoners.
 

VN1X

Banned
Oh funny, RLM actually liked it a lot.




They thought it succeeded well as a horror film where as I thought it didn't succeed at being a scary intelligent Horror film nor an engaging thriller neither. Oh well, horses for courses and all that stuff.
 

Lunarorbit

Member
Interesting.. I haven't been reading anything about it yet to avoid spoilers so that's kinda a bummer that yall didn't like it too much. Maybe I'll just wait til it's streaming then. The little bit I did see looked freaky
 

mekes

Member
I liked it. I would have liked some more substance around The Grabber in the final third to flesh the movie out a bit. But it is shot and acted well with an interesting concept. Good movie, not great but still worth seeing.
 

gradient

Resident Cheap Arse
Saw it yesterday. I really liked it.

That said, I can't help but feel like it's yet another case of the trailer and advertising missing the mark and giving the wrong impression of what the movie is. When I saw the trailer in the cinema I was left with the impression this movie would be flat out horror, but having watched it I'd say it's much more a supernatural thriller. Not a whole lot in terms of jumps, scares or blood/gore but a good amount of intrigue, tension and supernatural goings on.
 
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