THE BLACK PHONE (2021)

 THIS ONE I MAY RAMBLE A BIT ON.

  I don't listen to hype on a film before I see it so I went into this fairly cold.  I did realize that a lot of people seemed to think it was the bee's knees though.  I'm sure pretty much everyone knows the plot.  Back in 1978, several kids have gone missing -- nabbed by someone folks have dubbed 'The Grabber'.  Finney and Gwen Shaw are brother and sister; their mother had committed suicide before the movie starts and they are left in the care of their alcoholic and abusive father Terrence.  As kids go missing one by one from the neighbourhood, things obviously get a little tense.  I'm really not going to speak anymore plot points because I believe that it's better to go into this blind if you haven't already seen it by the time I'm writing this.  And if you have, then you already know what happens. 

What I will say is that director Scott Derrickson does a masterful job at spotlighting all the characters so that we really care about them -- even the ones we don't like.  He also has the whole suspense thing down.  I was absolutely on the edge of my seat through the entire running time.  Not only is this a top horror film but it is also one of the best films I saw from last year!  The entire cast is flawless; giving true and vivid performances without exception.  Particular fantastic acting jobs are by the two juvenile leads:  Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw as Finney and Gwen.  Thames is so good he anchors the film with his performance -- and even better is McGraw who is so good (especially in the harrowing 'belt' scene) that she puts most Oscar-winners to shame! 

Their truly reprehensible (but understandably so without excusing his behaviour) father Terrence is played by the squirrely Jeremy Davies; whom I probably know most from his twitchy role as Daniel Faraday on LOST.  Casting Davies as the mullet-haired, abusive father is not a role I would've thought of him for judging from all his performances in the past but here he is bewilderingly good playing against type as an alcoholic brute who has so much rage at the suicide of his wife that he drinks his pain away every night and takes it out on his kids.  Then there's Ethan Hawke as the mask-wearing psycho 'The Grabber'.  Hawke is one of those actors I never thought I liked very much until recent years when he's been picking some excellent film roles:  PREDESTINATION, Ti West's IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE, FIRST REFORMED -- all movies I loved -- as well as Sidney Lumet's masterpiece BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD and the wonderful Richard Linklater "BEFORE" trilogy. 

I guess I'm kinda a fan now.  Hawke portrays 'The Grabber' -- whom we have no backstory or explanation for -- in a wildly nuanced way for a character whom we practically never see without a mask on.  I'm telling you, even all the other kid actors do superb jobs; and it's long been apparent on this blog how little I usually like child actors.  I think the major reason why we have so many outstanding acting performances is because of the truly outstanding writing by director Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill and Joe Hill (yes, THAT Joe Hill -- THE BLACK PHONE is based on his own short story, of course).  The characters are drawn so fully that it seems a gift to a fine actor and this movie is loaded with really fine actors.  

It is also vital that this film takes place in the year 1978.  The script gets the whole childhood experience of school and growing up in the seventies soooooooooooo right.  In 1978, I was in 7th grade Middle School and every moment felt absolutely right.  Plus I found myself really REALLY identifying with Finney's character who even LOOKS like I looked back then.  I suppose that's why this movie resonated so much with me while I was watching it.  The violence against children (which I thankfully never experienced but that was too prevalent back then with some of my friends) as well as the violence AMONGST children (which I did experience quite a lot of through bullying) are so vividly depicted that the movie hit home really close to me.  As a painfully shy, bookish, skinny kid, I was an easy target for the bullies in my school.  However, also like Finney, when pushed just far enough I occasionally took a stand and wouldn't back down.  As Robin explains to Finney on 'the black phone' towards the climax of the film, I may not have been brave but I knew how to take a hit and got back up from it.  I don't know which screenwriter contributed this aspect of the kids but, I suspect it might have been Joe Hill -- just from his masterful writing of children in the LOCKE & KEY books.  Hill is only a half dozen years younger than I and he grew up in the 70's and early 80's like myself and he really GETS how things were back then.  The more I sit with this movie, the more surprised I am how affected I was by it.