Review: The Black Phone

Set in the late 70s where children are being snatched by a masked killer nicknamed The Grabber (Ethan Hawke). Mason Thames and his sister Madeleine McGraw’s lives are affected by The Grabber. The former ending up being snatched by him, the latter having psychic visions via a dream about one of the kidnappings. Jeremy Davies plays their unstable father.

 

I don’t know how faithful this 2022 film is to the short story by Joe Hill, but if it is indeed representative, one suggests Mr. Hill needs to find influences beyond his father Stephen King in future. Directed by Scott Derrickson (“Hellraiser Inferno”, “Deliver Us From Evil”, “Sinister”) and adapted by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill (“Sinister”, “Doctor Strange”), the film initially looked quite promising to me and the reviews have certainly been good. The cinematography by Brett Jutkiewicz (“Ready or Not”) is stunning from the outset, and early on the story intrigued me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long before I felt like I was watching a mixture of “IT” and “The Shining”. I started to get mad to be honest, because there was something genuinely creepy and intriguing here with the missing kids, but Hill’s treatment of that issue veers too far into his own father’s realm and never finds its own identity. At least, that’s if this is a faithful translation of Hill’s short story. Ethan Hawke’s pantomime performance as The Grabber makes the character seem like Pennywise filtered through Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka, which seemed like a Michael Jackson imitation. Honestly, I think dad should sue.

 

The performances are frankly not very impressive. Lead actor Mason Thames is just OK, and Hawke as I said is giving a pantomime performance. It’s artificial, you never buy into it beyond a surface level. Tim Curry hammed it up to high heaven as Pennywise, but there was an undercurrent of genuine, seedy menace there as well as an otherworldliness. The Grabber is just surface, he’s not a grabber. Best I can say is that you don’t think of Ethan Hawke, he successfully hides himself in the performance at least. Jeremy Davies is an acquired taste at the best of times, and he’s not having the best of times here. He’s wildly over-the-top without any call for it whatsoever. It’s an actor engaging in self-indulgent scenery chewing. Young Madeleine McGraw gives the best performance by far, but she’s not enough to save it.

 

An initially promising blend of horror and kidnapper/serial killer movie eventually offers up far too much familiarity to Stephen King. It might be a bit better than the recent adaptations of “IT” but for me that’s an extremely low bar. Very disappointing.

 

Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit too s
Read more

Review: Eugenie de Sade

Eugenie (Soledad Miranda) makes a deathbed confession to author/biographer (Jesus ‘Jess’ Franco himself), recounting the tale of how her depraved stepfather (Paul Muller) groomed her into a life of depravity, debauchery, and murder.   Not to be confused with the similarly titled “Eugenie…The Story of Her Journey into Perversion” (by the same director) or “Justine de Sade” (which is not to be confused with Franco’s own “Justine” for that matter), this 1973 Marquis de Sade adaptation from writer-director Jesus Franco ( “99 Women” , “A Virgin Among the Living Dead” ) is perhaps the perfect marriage of Franco, sleazy material, and actors. Basically this is what Franco’s “She Killed in Ecstasy” might’ve been like if it were based on a Marquis de Sade work. There’s a few slow spots here and there, but overall I actually think this is Franco’s best film. Yes, even better than my previous choice “Vampyros Lesbos” , and better than his more ‘respectable’ films like “Count Dracula” (a
Read more