The Black Phone

A delicious period piece, The Black Phone gives us atmosphere aplenty before veering into a somewhat unsatisfying middle act and later reclaiming its place among the better Blumhouse offerings with a compelling conclusion.

Siblings Finney and Gwen are navigating a dangerous home life – thanks to an abusive, alcoholic dad – and stranger danger too: youngsters and classmates are mysteriously disappearing in late 70s suburban Denver.

The only lead cops have to go on is the presence of black balloons at the scene of the abductions. And Gwen’s premonitory dreams when her bro is kidnapped by a perp who’s become known as The Grabber (this film would almost make for a great double bill with Irish pub-horror, Grabbers).

The Black Phone shows us Finney’s gumption, guile and resourcefulness in the Grabber’s basement, but bogs down the proceedings with too many phonecalls from The Great Beyond and delving too deeply into the supernatural, at least to this reviewer’s tastes. But it should come as no surprise: the source material is a short story courtesy of Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill. So you could call this film his nepo baby.

Still, The Black Phone has enough character development for a horror trilogy. The performances are fantastic, particularly Mason Thames as Finney and Madeleine McGraw as Gwen. There’s gobs of atmosphere, and dare we say a “Sinister” tone (director Scott Derrickson did that fellow Ethan Hawke-starrer too)

Mostly dynamite, so don’t hang up on this one.

***3/4 (out of 5)