Scott Derrickson's TheBlackPhone is an intense yet ultimately superficial thriller.
The Black Phone is at its best when it’s working with as little as possible. A majority of the new film from Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson takes place in a grimy basement, but it manages to make the most out of its central confined space — filling it with intimidating shadows and secrets for its protagonist to discover over the course of The Black Phone’s 102-minute runtime.
When Finney answers the phone, he discovers that it allows him to communicate with the ghosts of the children that The Grabber has previously killed. The film then follows Finney as he attempts to escape from his captor’s basement by using the knowledge and advice of those who have already been trapped there. At the same time, Finney’s younger sister, Gwen , finds herself experiencing otherworldly visions and dreams, which she uses to try and discover where her brother is being kept.
Derrickson, to his credit, remains as talented as ever at making the violence in his films feel visceral and authentic, but depicting real-world, grounded forms of violence like child abuse requires a level of deftness and sensitivity that The Black Phone lacks. The film’s early instances of mundane violence only begin to stand out more, however, once certain dreamlike elements are introduced.