The Black Phone | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Child abduction story dials in supernatural element but avoids calling up fashionably exuberant characters.

The individual whose name graces this ezine liked the horror film The Black Phone so much that he saw it in the theatre twice and almost went back a third time. Hold on – was this film, directed by Scott Derrickson and based on a Joe Hill short story of the same name, that good? Let’s find out.

The year is 1978. A boy named Finney (Mason Thames) and his much rowdier and crasser younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) – she’s the one who isn’t afraid to clobber a bully – are being raised by alcoholic and physically abusive father Terrence (Jeremy Davies). Their mother, who had a gift of seeing things in her dreams that Gwen seems to have retained, is gone, and a kidnapper nicknamed the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) is abducting boys in the family’s Denver suburb. Naturally, the Grabber grabs Finney.

Here’s where the story diverges from the typical: while he’s confined in the Grabber’s basement, Finney gets a series of calls on a disconnected black phone mounted on the wall. The callers, who are the villain’s previous victims, offer pointers about how Finney can survive. Meanwhile, Gwen has dreams that may or may not lead the authorities to the Grabber. 

Recent horror productions such as Stranger Things and the remake of It feature child protagonists who are outspoken, brash, funny and in some cases, supremely confident. However, Finney, the boy protagonist of The Black Phone, is much more serious and reserved. He comes across as a thoughtful boy known by his friends for his ability to take a beating and keep getting up. His weakness: he doesn’t fight back. That’s going to be put to the test, of course. 

The film’s biggest strength is Hawke’s portrayal of the menacing villain. The devil-like mask he always wears – sometimes the whole face, other times just the top or the bottom – underscores his unpredictability and his lack of a backstory. Particularly unsettling are the games the Grabber plays with his victim. When he exits the basement, for instance, he deliberately leaves open the door to the stairs and, by implication, to freedom. But it’s not so easy. Furthermore, Hawke’s tone shifts from silly commentary to vivid descriptions of how he’ll punish Finney for being disobedient.  

My biggest gripe with The Black Phone involves the presentation of the ghosts, shown with all their Grabber-inflicted bruises and scars. Their lips move in tandem with their phone voices as they communicate with Finney. Thus, the viewer sees Finney’s predecessors, but he does not. The viewer would have been much more aligned with the protagonist (and the film would have been more frightening) had the filmmakers elected to only focus on the voices and leave out the visuals that add a jarring campiness to an otherwise serious film. Another shortcoming of the ghosts is inconsistency – either give Finney cryptic or straightforward clues, but don’t do both. The film also misses an opportunity to capitalize on parallels between Finney’s father and the Grabber. 

Another observation: much of the film, especially the beginning, feels as if it is moving in slow motion… even a fight between two boys. And except for Gwen, none of the kids shows much enthusiasm. This strangeness, however, oddly adds to the film’s aura by giving it a more authentic vibe. Moreover, its gritty feel underscores its moment in time and creates a sense of creepiness. The film also introduces comic relief in a cocaine-fuelled theorist who thinks he can help the police pinpoint the location of the Grabber. 

This all brings us back to our initial question: is The Black Phone worthy of two trips to the theatre? I’m not sure – I’ll have to watch it again.—Douglas J. Ogurek ****

Strange Weather, by Joe Hill (William Morrow) | Review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Lightning strikes repeatedly in quartet of tales rich in character and sensory details.

In Strange Weather, a thunderstorm does not just get you wet – it gets you torn apart by crystal nails. And a photograph doesn’t simply capture your image – it steals your memories. 

Each of the four short novels in this collection not only testifies to Joe Hill’s inventiveness, but also ratchets up the tension while nimbly doling out character and setting details that firmly root the reader in the action. Whether a scene involves a botched shooting at a mall jewellery store or a man who’s about to jump out of a plane despite a paralyzing fear of heights, the reader will be fully immersed in the experience thanks to Hill’s mastery of the senses. 

Locke & Key, Vol. 6: Alpha & Omega, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW Publishing) | review by Stephen Theaker

Since the Locke family moved to the town of Lovecraft, Massachusetts, and began to live in the big old Keyhouse, things have been weird, dangerous and magical. By the time this final collection begins the children have almost got to the point where they can cope with their losses and new responsiblities, but the demon that possessed Luke Caravaggio is hiding among them, gathering keys of power and waiting for the most devastating time to strike: prom night, when the kids are planning to have an afterparty in the cave down by the ocean. Just where he wants them. Luckily Tyler, Kinsey and Bode have found friends and allies since they came to town, so they won’t have to face this fight alone. Writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez bring their story to a satisfying conclusion. The stakes are high, the heroes are brave, the villain is vile, and thematically it all ties up with where it began, Tyler telling the bad guy, “I wouldn’t underrate the power of regret. It doesn’t feel good… but it’s hard to learn anything important without it.” That’s “Omega”, and in the epilogue, “Alpha”, Tyler makes some kind of peace with his own great regret. It’s a good place for the story to end, though you feel there’s still a lot of space in this world for new stories to be told. ****

Gunpowder, by Joe Hill

I read a lot of horror in my early teens, when I was still dependent for reading material on the adults around me and the library. So that meant lots of James Herbert and Stephen King, and unfortunately some Shaun Hutson. Once I got to the point that I could buy more books for myself than I could possibly read, horror fell to the wayside – I’d enjoyed Herbert and King, but my favourites were Vance, Moorcock, Asimov, Farmer, Dick. More recently I do most of my reading at bedtime: not the best time to read horror.

Which is all by way of explanation for why this was the first book I’d read by Joe Hill. I’d taken Heart-Shaped Box and 20th Century Ghosts out from the library, but never got around to reading them.

But now science fiction fans can find out what all the fuss is about. This superb novella took hold of my attention from the very first page and never released it. If I didn’t read it in a single sitting, I’ve no memory of what else I was doing that day! It’s a familiar scenario – gifted kids and the military that wants to exploit them – but the writing is so wonderful, the character touches so exquisite, the narrative so brilliantly focused.

The story starts out small – the relationships between the boys and their handler/mother – but opens out to so much more. I won’t say what, because it should all come as a surprise – but it’s all cool stuff. It’s tragic, moving, epic and glorious, and all in a mere eighty pages.

It may still take me a while to read Joe Hill’s horror works, but if he continues to write science fiction he’ll very quickly become one of my favourite authors. If Stephen King had been an out-and-out science fiction writer, would he have been writing sf as wonderful as this for the last twenty years? It doesn’t bear thinking about… Let’s just hope Joe Hill produces more in this line over the next twenty years.

Gunpowder, Joe Hill, PS Publishing, hb, 88pp.