By: Beverly Stinson
*Warning: This review contains spoilers
‘The Black Phone’ is a thriller-drama movie released on June 24th, 2022. It’s about a 13-year-old boy who gets kidnapped by a serial kidnapper and communicates with the ghosts of the kidnapper’s past victims to help him escape. This film is rated ‘R’ for violence, bloody images, profanity, and drug use.
The main charecter in this movie is a 13-year-old boy named Finney Blake. He lives in a small town with his sister and father. He and his sister have a troubled home life with their father being an alcoholic and violent. Finney often gets bullied at school but receives help from Robin Arellano his best friend.
During the first part of the movie multiple kids go missing, most of which are kids Finney knows in some way. It then leads up to Finney’s kidnapping, where after he’s been taken, he wakes up in a small room in a basem*nt. Inside the basem*nt is a bed, toilet, and a black phone. The kidnapper (known as “The Grabber”) continuously speaks to Finney, seemingly trying to make small talk. The Grabber mentions the phone and how it doesn’t work.
Even though The Grabber states that the phone doesn’t work, it eventually starts ringing, and when Finney picks it up, the voice of a kid speaks through the phone; the kid being one of The Grabbers victims. After that, The Grabber’s other victims start calling him, with all of them giving him tips on how to escape.
Finney’s sister Gwen is a major character in this movie. When Finney goes missing, she tries to find him with some new senses that she has.
‘My review’
When I first saw the trailers for ‘The Black Phone’, I didn’t think I’d watch it. I’m not so big on thriller or horror, especially movies that have to do with kidnapping. But after a year of it being out, I decided to watch it (mostly because of edits of characters I saw). But before watching it, I had done so much research that I spoiled everything for myself, which isn’t the first time I’ve done that.
I do wanna say even though it’s already mentioned in the R rating that this movie does have a lot of violent scenes, some of which are of Finney and Gwen’s father. So, if that’s a hard topic for you then take caution when reading.
So, even though I was skeptical about watching it at first, I will honestly say that it’s a great movie. There’s always so much suspense and the storyline of not just Finney’s story but also Gwen’s and the ghost boys is so thought out. I love how they mix a realistic scenario with the supernatural; when movies or shows do that it makes it more interesting and original.
I like how they touch on bad households with both the siblings and The Grabber. It is said that The Grabber ends up the way he is because of how his father treated him. He started kidnapping 13-14-year-old boys who he deemed bad, to punish them like his father did to him. Which ya-know, does not justify his actions in any way. Actually, as I’m getting into the fandom, I’m noticing that no one really likes him, and that’s actually pretty surprising to me as I am also in fandoms like ‘Scream’ and ‘IT’ and even though the villains in those movies did bad things, the fandom still seems to like them (myself included).
And other than the siblings and The Grabber, one other character apparently had a troubled home life as well, this character being Vance Hopper, who is actually my favorite character. Vance doesn’t have a lot of scenes but based off of his character, and what the actors have said, you can kinda guess how his life is.
A lot of people might say that this is a lot for one movie, but seeing as how it’s based in the late 70s it’s sorta realistic. Since back then it was more acceptable to treat your kids that way, or at least people didn’t talk about it as much.
I really think it’s great that they talk about it, because tons of movies try to dodge topics like that instead of facing them.
So, this next thing I like about it does include some spoilers so take caution!
My favorite part of the entire movie was the ghost boys; in total there are 5. In order they are:
- Griffin Stagg
- Billy Showalter
- Vance Hopper
- Bruce Yamada
- Robin Arellano
There would’ve been 6 but the ghost boys wanted to make sure there wasn’t.
There were all different reasons why the grabber took them but all of them are summed up to them being “bad boys”, at least in his eyes. For example, Vance Hopper AKA Pinball Vance, was an extremely violent person, and was a bully. In one scene, he beats up two kids after one of them bumped into him while he was playing pinball, which caused him to lose. He is said to be a borderline sociopath (I don’t believe that but I’m biased).
I would also like to mention the cast as I really love the cast. I really think they couldn’t have done better with the cast; the actors fit the roles so well. My favorite actors are definitely Brady Hepner (Vance), Mason Thames (Finney), and Tristan Pravong (Bruce).
Ever since I got into the fandom I’ve been watching their Instagram lives and watching interviews and they are so awesome. Sadly, they aren’t in a lot of movies or shows, which is so funny because it always seems like the actors I love aren’t in a lot of things.
If you like suspenseful movies, I’d recommend you watch this movie. It does have a little comedy in it if you don’t only like plain thrillers. Remember that it is rated R and that you should be cautious when watching with children or if you are sensitive to blood or violence.
Thank you for reading my review and I hope you enjoy the movie if you decide to watch it. Hopefully my review makes you want to watch it ❤
You can watch ‘The Black Phone’ on Peaco*ck.
