The Black Phone: Better Late Than Never, and Worth Every Minute

I have a bone to pick with all of you. Somehow you let me go this long without watching The Black Phone, and I am genuinely disappointed in us both. But here we are, and I have since corrected that mistake, so let's get into it.

I finally sat down with this one on a day off while nursing a sick kid, which tells you everything about my current season of life. What I expected was something I would have to turn off halfway through. What I got was one of the more quietly affecting horror films I have seen in a long time.

Directed by Scott Derrickson and based on a short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone follows Finney Blake, a young boy growing up in a small town already weighed down by bullying, an alcoholic and abusive father, and the grief of losing his mother. The town itself is living under a shadow: a child serial killer known as the Grabber has been snatching kids, and Finney eventually becomes one of his victims. What unfolds from there is part supernatural thriller, part coming-of-age story, and entirely more moving than I anticipated.

I will be honest about why I avoided this film for so long. Every time I caught the trailer, all I registered was an adorable kid being terrorized by a masked serial killer, and I said no. I am a mother. I already sat through The Lovely Bones. I have limits. What the trailer never communicated to me was that this film is far more psychological than brutal, and that most of the violence against children happens offscreen. That restraint is one of the smartest choices Derrickson makes. It keeps the film from becoming something you endure and allows it to remain something you feel.

The emotional core of the story rests on two things. The first is the relationship between Finney and his little sister Gwen, who begins having premonitions she believes will lead her to the Grabber once her brother goes missing. Their sibling dynamic is genuinely tender, and the film earns every moment of it. The second is the magical realism at the heart of Finney's imprisonment: a disconnected black phone on the wall of his cell begins ringing, and the voices on the other end are the Grabber's previous victims, each one offering him something he will need to survive.  

That is where the film's real message lives. It is about the ways children are failed by the adults around them, both inside the home and outside of it, and how they are often left with no one but each other. The idea that these dead children, unable to save themselves, reach back to save someone else is genuinely touching. It is also unmistakably the work of Joe Hill, who has clearly inherited not just his father's face but his instinct for finding the human wound underneath the horror. Watching this, I kept thinking of It and Stand by Me, that same small-town childhood dread, that same understanding that growing up can be its own kind of survival story. The King family really does operate on one wavelength, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

Mason Thames, who you may recognize from the live action How to Train Your Dragon, is remarkable here. He carries the film with a quietness that never feels passive, and the scenes in that basement cell, which could have easily become repetitive, stay tense and emotionally alive because of what he brings to them.

I gave this three and a half out of five stars on Letterboxd, and I stand by it. It is the kind of film I would watch again, which is not something I say lightly about horror. I am already planning to get to Black Phone 2, and I am going in with real expectations now rather than cautious ones.

If you got on this train before I did, I want to hear about it in the comments. And if you are like me and have been sleeping on it, consider this your sign.

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Shaquanna "Quanna" Stevens is a film critic, educator, and storyteller who reviews films through the lens of culture, representation, and genre. She runs Her Reel Review, where she explores horror, romance, fantasy, and films by Black creators. When she's not writing or filming reviews, she teaches English IV Honors and AP Literature, advises student filmmakers, and helps young creatives develop their voices.