The Black Phone is a movie based on Joe Hill's (Stephen King's son) short story. It's a horror/thriller movie set in the 1970s much like other movies based on novels by his dad, Stephen King.

Summary

The movie's main character played by Mason Thames gets bullied. Ironically, his younger sister is the one defending him against bullies. Anyway, there is a serial in their town who is named "The Grabber" played by Ethan Hawke. Who, just like his name likes to grab kids and they end up missing and unalive. At the start of the movie, Finn is timid and gets bullied. Eventually he was kidnapped by the grabber and imprisoned in his lair.

Finn's sister who has "The Shining" if I can borrow the term from another Stephen King novel slowly determines where he is. While Finn who seems to have the same powers, has the ability to speak to the dead using an old phone as his medium.

Eventually Finn, with the help of ghosts learn how to escape from the grabber but fails. He had to dig deep and not give up and give escape another try. He defeats The Grabber, returns to school and gains the confidence he didn't have before.

Comments

The theme of the movie is familiar. It's called "The Heroes' Journey" type of story telling. We have seen it before in movies like "Clash of the Titans" (1981), "Hercules" (1997), and "The Forbidden Kingdom" (2008).

In this type of story telling, our hero gets called to an adventure. In this case, he got kidnapped. He gets supernatural aid from ghosts or mentored by ghosts. He encounters challenges and gives up but he experiences profound transformation and beats the odds. Finally he returns to where he came from a better person than when he left.

Ethan Hawke as the movie's antagonist is terrifying. He is big and deadly compared to the kids he kidnaps.

I also liked the sibling relationship between the main character and his sister. His sister didn't give up and tried to keep finding him with her talents even though it was forbidden by their dad. The setting reminds me of "Dr. Sleep" and "Stranger Things" which I also enjoyed.

Conclusion

I enjoyed watching the movie. It's a fun and exciting adventured cloaked in a horror/thriller movie. I also liked that it ended in a satisfying way and not a setup of part 2 like the other movies/series I recently reviewed. :) It will have a sequel though because audiences liked it. This is how a movie should be made, where entertaining the audience is the goal.