The Black Phone
The Black Phone is a 2021 American supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson from a screenplay he wrote with C. Robert Cargill, based on the 2004 short story by Joe Hill. It is the first installment in the Black Phone franchise. It stars Mason Thames as Finney, a teenage boy abducted by a serial child killer known colloquially as the Grabber. When Finney encounters a mystical black rotary phone in captivity, he uses it to plot his escape by communicating with the ghosts of the Grabber's slain victims. Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, and James Ransone also feature in the principal cast. Derrickson and Cargill produced The Black Phone in association with Blumhouse Productions CEO Jason Blum. Universal Pictures oversaw the film's commercial distribution, and funding was sourced through a pact with Blumhouse and tax subsidies from the North Carolina state government.
The idea of The Black Phone arose from Derrickson and Cargill's adaptation of the eponymous short story by Hill, found in 20th Century Ghosts. Derrickson struggled to produce additional ideas that supplemented the short story, shifting his attention to other filmmaking endeavors. The film remained dormant until he resigned from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness over creative differences. Derrickson used his childhood experiences in suburban Denver, Colorado, to develop The Black Phone story. Principal photography began in February 2021 on a $16–18 million budget, and wrapped the following month. Shooting took place on sets and on location in Wilmington, North Carolina. Mark Korven composed the film's score, which drew on modern and vintage synthesizer sounds.
The Black Phone premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 25, 2021, and opened in US theaters after several delays on June 24, 2022. It was a box office success, grossing $161.4 million globally. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its performances but were divided on its concept. The success of The Black Phone spawned the titular franchise, which includes a canonical short film titled "Dreamkill" as part of the anthology film V/H/S/85, and a sequel titled Black Phone 2.
Plot
In 1978, a local serial child abductor and murderer, known only as "The Grabber", prowls the streets of a suburb in North Denver, Colorado. Finney Blake and his younger sister, Gwen, live in the area with their abusive, alcoholic father, Terrence, whose wife died by suicide after having a series of disturbing psychic dreams. Finney is frequently bullied and harassed at school, but his friend and classmate, Robin, fends off the bullies.Having inherited her mother's ability, Gwen dreams about the Grabber's abduction of Bruce, a boy Finney knew from Little League. Police detectives Wright and Miller interview Gwen at school, believing she may know the Grabber. When Terrence learns about the questioning, he beats Gwen. Soon afterward, the Grabber abducts Robin and then Finney.
Finney awakens in a soundproofed basement with a disconnected black rotary dial telephone on one wall. It begins to ring on its own at times; Finney hears only static when he first answers it but then hears Bruce's voice telling him about a floor tile he can remove to dig an escape tunnel. Finney starts to dig, but the house's foundations are too deep for him to go beneath them.
The Grabber brings Finney a meal and leaves the basement door unlocked. As Finney is about to sneak out, he gets a call from Billy, another past victim. Billy warns Finney that the Grabber is waiting at the top of the basement stairs to beat him with a belt until he passes out if he tries to leave, as part of a cruel game. At Billy's suggestion, Finney uses a hidden cable to climb up to the basement window; however, his weight pulls out the grate covering the pane, leaving him with no way to reach it again.
As Gwen confides to Terrence about her dreams of Finney's abduction, Wright and Miller question an eccentric man named Max, who stays in the area with his brother and has shown great interest in the Grabber's crimes. Unbeknownst to him, Finney is being held in Max's basement, and the Grabber is actually his brother.
Finney receives a call from Griffin, a third victim, who gives him the combination to the lock securing the house's front door and tells him that the Grabber has fallen asleep. He sneaks out and unlocks the door, but the Grabber quickly recaptures Finney after his dog, Samson, barks to wake him. A fourth victim, a juvenile delinquent named Vance, calls to tell Finney he can break through a wall and into a freezer in the adjacent room. Finney does so but finds the freezer door locked. As Finney despairs over his fate, he receives one last call from Robin, who urges him to stand up for himself and fight back by packing the phone receiver with dirt to use as a bludgeon.
After seeing the Grabber's house in a vision, Gwen calls Wright and Miller to give them the address. The police rush to the house and find the bodies of the Grabber's victims buried in the basement. Meanwhile, Max realizes Finney is being held in the basement and rushes to free him, but the Grabber kills him with an axe. Upset that he had to kill his brother, the Grabber then attacks Finney, having decided to end his game. Finney uses the byproducts from his previous escape attempts to trap the Grabber in a pit he has dug, beats him with the receiver, and breaks his neck with the phone cord as his past victims taunt him.
Throwing a steak from the freezer to Samson as a distraction, Finney leaves the house, which turns out to be across the street from the one the police have raided. Terrence tearfully begs Finney and Gwen to forgive his earlier treatment of them. Sometime later, now viewed as a hero at school, a newly confident Finney sits next to his crush in class and says she can call him Finn.
Cast
Production
Development
The Black Phone emerged from filmmakers Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's adaptation of Joe Hill's short story of the same name, published in the horror anthology 20th Century Ghosts. Derrickson came across 20th Century Ghosts shortly after its initial US release. The director was eager to conceive a film faithful to "The Black Phone", which fascinated him in its framing of a conventional serial killer story, but struggled to produce ideas of his own devising. He shelved the project to focus on his professional relationship with Cargill, forged from Sinister and his contractual obligations to Marvel Studios as director of the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Cargill briefly pitched for a replacement director in the interim, stopping once Derrickson convinced him to wait until he was available to commit. Their collaboration resumed after Derrickson resigned from the Doctor Strange sequel over disputes about the film's artistic direction.To bolster The Black Phone story, Derrickson used his upbringing in suburban Denver, Colorado, as a major source of inspiration. He gleaned from people in his everyday life to shape the characters, their circumstances, and the film's depiction of suburbia, including a child whose mother was raped, murdered, and disposed of in a lake wrapped in phone wire. The director described the area he grew up in as a working class neighborhood with "a lot of violence—everybody got whipped by their parents, there was fighting on the way to school, on the way home from school, at school." Derrickson raised the idea of a semi-autobiographical horror story as he was processing traumatic childhood experiences in therapy. He also investigated The 400 Blows and The Devil's Backbone for their depiction of resilience and kinship among children.
Casting
Agents scouted hundreds of child actors for The Black Phone starring roles. They ultimately hired Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw as the first significant casting choices, from auditions conducted on Zoom as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. McGraw was considered among four actresses, and when a prior commitment to Disney's television series Secrets of Sulphur Springs forced her to pull out, the producers postponed filming of The Black Phone by several months to accommodate her schedule. Casting for Finney was not as immediate of an undertaking. It took months for the filmmakers to survey the actors—first through talent agencies in New York and Los Angeles, then an open call—before they were shown Thames's demo reels. Even though Thames lacked acting experience, The Black Phone being his film debut, he reportedly stood apart from others in his ability to emote and take direction. Due to the amount of violence and profanity in the script, Derrickson carefully broached the subject to Thames, McGraw, and their parents in preparation for scenes.By early 2021, the starring cast featured Jeremy Davies, Ethan Hawke, and James Ransone, the latter two in their second film with Derrickson after Sinister. The director and Cargill did not envision one particular actor as The Grabber in their original character treatments, but sent Hawke the script because they had a rapport. Hawke was disinclined to play villainous parts as he feared being typecast. Yet The Black Phone story resonated with the actor, and the idea of The Grabber being concealed by a mask further enticed him. Hawke's experience on the set of Sinister was another influence shaping his decision. He developed his performance by honing expression in his voice and body. Derrickson did not have many discussions with Hawke regarding The Grabber's portrayal because he felt showing him the mask would best yield their desired interpretation.
Filming
began on February 9, 2021, in Wilmington, North Carolina, under the pseudonym Static. A private residence used for interior and exterior shots was the shoot's initial location. The production base was confined mostly to EUE/Screen Gems's local film studio, from sets portraying The Grabber's basement, and adjacent neighborhoods. Estimates to realize the shoot ran between $16–18 million, the budget partially funded by a $4.7 million transferable tax credit on in-state costs from the North Carolina government. Elsewhere regionally, shooting occurred in New Hanover, Brunswick, and Columbus counties. Filming for The Black Phone ended on March 27, 2021.Brett Jutkiewicz was The Black Phone director of photography. Jutkiewicz had just finished filming Scream when he received the script from his agent. Derrickson approached him in mid-December 2020 to discuss ideas raised from Jutkiewicz's reading of The Black Phone script. They also bonded from discussing Jutkiewicz's work in the satirical horror film Ready or Not, which had impressed Derrickson. After an interviewing period, the producers formally contracted Jutkiewicz that January. Derrickson's instruction was to implement a look evoking the 1970s period in which the film is set. The production used source material, such as New York-set 1970s movies, not so much to glean textural ideas as to establish the appropriate tone for the setting and storytelling. This, according to Jutkiewicz, meant experimenting with color grading techniques to produce a high contrast, muted, but not desaturated, visual palette. To achieve this image quality, and to reduce the picture's range of hues, filmmakers mixed colors using specialized lookup tables. The choice of LUTs was contingent on the brightness of sets; for example, Jutkiewicz employed a darker LUT to preserve the image palette of dimly-lit basement scenes.
The camera crew shot the dream sequences in Super 8 format, an established practice of Derrickson's repertoire, using Bolex cameras. They prepared by testing the utility of footage in Kodak's color negative film stock—the Vision3 500T 5219/7219, Vision3 50D 7203, and Vision3 250D 5207/7207. Lighting determined the film stock deployed for the shooting. Jutkiewicz said that he at first struggled working in Super 8 format as he had to reacquaint with old filmmaking methods.