The Black Phone is based on a short story by Joe Hill from 2004. For those that don't recognize that name, Joe Hill is Stephen King's son's alias. It's a quick read and greatly expands the ideas within for a more concise story. That doesn't mean there aren't any unanswered questions in it.
That seems to be the MO for most horror movies, so it’s not anything new for The Black Phone. Another thing horror movies are known for is scaring the heck out of the audience. That's the hope for many moviegoers at least. Does this film have a lot of good scares? It does, but not in the conventional means. Let's run down the best with full spoilers activated.
8 Terrence Whipping Gwen
This early scene in The Black Phone might be the scariest in the film. It has nothing to do with supernatural monsters or jump scares either. Finney wakes up after watching TV in the living room to hear his father and sister arguing. His dad is whipping Gwen because she talked to the police about her dreams.
Finney is powerless to stop it from happening, and he knows that. Both the audience and Finney just have to watch this all too real moment happen in a horror film.
7 Finney And Gwen’s Fight
There is another seemingly normal moment in this horror film that is shocking because of the reality of it all. Finney gets picked on at school for various reasons. His friend, Robin, always has his back when bullies come after him though. However, after Robin gets kidnapped, the bullies chase Finney home and eventually start beating him.
Gwen steps in to rescue her brother instead, bashing one kid’s head with a rock. There is a moment of silence as the kid feels his head as blood starts to gush out. Gwen soon gets her own bash to the face as well. Child-on-child violence can be one of the hardest things to watch in media.
6 Finney’s Taken Moment
Finney seems to be deathly afraid of The Grabber when he talks to Gwen about it on the way home from school one day. Finney is so afraid that he doesn’t even want to say The Grabber’s name out loud because he feels like it might summon him. The Grabber doesn’t have supernatural powers which is a twist to the movie and Finney’s beliefs.
As paranoid as Finney is, it’s strange that he would go up to the black van and help out the seemingly ordinary stranger who turned out to be his worst nightmare. It was broad daylight when he gets kidnapped too which is the real horrifying aspect of the situation.
5 The Grabber’s Various Masks
The Grabber is unsettling for a villain for many reasons. His soft voice is one thing that can throw his victims off guard. He may seem nice and well-mannered but when he gets mad, it’s not a good thing. The various masks he wears are also something of nightmares.
When he kidnaps Finney he is only wearing white face paint. Then there is the full smiling mask, the sad mask, and the moments in The Black Phone when he separates the pieces. These are all tactics used to throw both Finney and the audience off which is a good horror film technique.
4 Billy’s Appearance
Bruce is the first character Finney will talk with over the black phone. Oddly, the phone rings at all considering the cord was cut. As confusing and delirious as Bruce sounds, it’s not scary. However, the second victim, Billy, should make the audience jump from fright.
That’s because his body suddenly appears behind Finney with an accompanying sting in the soundtrack. He’s all bloodied up with his gravelly voice coming through the phone but also out of his mouth. It is a creepy moment, to say the least.
3 Dripping Blood
That’s not the only time in The Black Phone that a child victim is used for a jump scare. About halfway through the film, Finney wakes up to the sound of dripping. He assumes it must be water coming in from somewhere which could help him escape.
Unfortunately, that’s not water he was hearing drip. It was blood and it was coming from the suspended, floating body of Griffin. None of these kids come after Finney in a bad way but their appearances are still horrifying visual effects that will unsettle the soul.
2 Gwen’s Vision Of The Boys
Gwen has a real It movement when she is biking in the rain and looking for Finney. She is dressed in a yellow raincoat just like Georgie was before he gets gobbled up by Pennywise in that film. While she doesn’t suffer the same fate, Gwen is given a scare via a premonition.
All five victims appear before her, covered in the scars they received from The Grabber. It’s a good thing they appeared as they helped point Gwen in the right direction. It was still an unexpected moment that could cause a few scares.
1 The Final Battle
It’s hard to know if a horror movie is going to end on a happy, sad, or bittersweet note. It seemed like things were building up to a twist regarding the house Finney was staying at. Would the police reach him in time or would he already be dead? The twist was that there were two houses, one across the street from the other.
This might have caused a panic in the audience along with the idea of the final battle between The Grabber and Finney. Could a child truly beat an adult with only a phone packed with dirt? It may not exactly be a horrifying moment, but it was an intense one to be sure.