The phone is ringing,
And it’s for you.

There’s no one on the other end,
No wicked foe, no missing friend,
But no one has a message to send,
And it’s for you.

You hear a ragged breath and pause
To listen to the creaking jaws
Of no one breaking nature’s laws,
And it’s for you.

Their words are ringing in your head,
A warning no one could have said.
The ring is loud; the line is dead,
And it’s for you.
___________________

MPA rating: R (for language, brief violence, and terror)

Writer-director Scott Derrickson may not yet be a household name of the horror genre, but he’s getting there. An adaptation of a short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone is set in 1978 suburban Colorado, in the midst of a rash of child kidnappings attributed to the Grabber. After his sole friend becomes a victim, outcast Finney Blake (Mason Thames) soon suffers the same fate, spirited away in a black van only to wake up imprisoned in a basement. While his psychic sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) searches for him, Finney is toyed with by the unstable Grabber (Ethan Hawke, hidden behind a menacing mask), and a phone in the basement delivers calls from the predator’s former victims.

The Black Phone works on many levels: as a semi-autobiographical portrait of 1970s suburbia, as a coming-of-age for a kid fighting for respect, and as a serial killer tale with a supernatural twist. Hawke is a threatening presence, a victim of some trauma that has made him unpredictable and bloodthirsty, and the mask seems custom-built to join the ranks of iconic killer Halloween costumes. The phone is likewise effectively creepy in its lack of explanation, a way for Finney specifically to gain insight on the danger facing him from those who could not survive it previously. The role of the psychic sister feels ancillary to the more interesting elements but still contributes in an unexpected way by the end.

The Black Phone isn’t the scariest horror out there and borrows some beats from other films like Misery, but it has all the ingredients for a memorable chiller. Thames especially was a fantastic find as the child actor lead, and it’s gratifying to see him get higher-profile roles since, like in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon. Now, as someone with a disconnected landline in the house, I’ll just be praying that it never rings.

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2026 S.G. Liput
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