SYNOPSIS

After being kidnapped by a serial killer, a boy starts receiving calls from the man's previous victims from a broken phone in the basement.

INITIAL THOUGHTS

This movie has Ethan Hawke in it so I had to watch it. The man is usually in pretty good stuff. He has enjoyed a successful thirty-plus year career, I still remember watching DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989) for the first time. That is a gem of a film with Robin Williams in it.

There's countless other very decent films he's been in:

WHITE FANG (1991) REALITY BITES (1994) BEFORE SUNRISE (1995) GATTACA (1997) GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1998) HAMLET (2000) TRAINING DAY (2001) BEFORE SUNSET (2004) ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (2005) DAYBREAKERS (2009) SINISTER (2012) BEFORE MIDNIGHT (2013) THE PURGE (2013) THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2016) VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS (2017) THE GOOD LORD BIRD (2020)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Anyway back to THE BLACK PHONE, where Ethan Hawke plays the bad guy. I think one of the weaknesses of this film is he plays an amazing villain but we don't get to see enough of him.

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And as for the rest of the cast, they're all good especially the main kid's younger sister -- great performances.

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This film is a lot of build-up, a lot of dread, and very oriented around building up the atmosphere of the time period -- the 1970s. It's always interesting to get a window into decades of the past. As a millennial, I keep thinking the 70s were 30 years ago but they're now 50 years ago which still blows my mind.

Overall, it was a good film. It accomplished what it wanted to do but wasn't exactly spectacular.

Final Grade?

Hope you enjoyed this movie review!

If you're interested in more movies reviews by me, here's a list of my previous entries: