The Black Phone

Scott Derrickson’s 2022 film is set in Denver in 1978: the abducted Finney sits in a soundproof basement beside a disconnected phone that rings anyway. It comes from a thirty page Joe Hill story, enlarged in two places. On the page the older sister Susannah has a vague second sight that never moves the plot; on screen she is the younger Gwen, and what she sees leads police to the house, so the rescue does not come from the basement alone. The father, barely there in the story, becomes Terrence, a violent alcoholic. Tom Savini designed the masks and Jason Baker built them; Derrickson’s only reference was Paul Leni’s 1928 The Man Who Laughs. Over thirty were made in three expressions: joy, despair, nothingness. The mask splits in two, so Ethan Hawke’s face is never fully available, and he says the masks were what told him how to play the part. Derrickson grew up in Denver; some of Robin Arellano’s lines are word for word from a boy he knew. Shooting was entirely around Wilmington, North Carolina. A good fit if you accept a villain whose menace must be read off a two piece mask, a voice and a posture. Not for anyone unwilling to watch violence against a child inside the home, which the film added rather than adapted.