LM23 Rating: Going to the theatre, but when I have time
After Halloween Kills, The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It, and You Should Have Left, I’m pretty much ambivalent about horror movies in this day and age. Even The Invisible Man was a let down as soon as I realized it wasn’t a supernatural Invisible Man, but a guy with a super cool suit. I’m not certain when was the last time I actually saw a modern day scary movie that was actually scary. It was probably The Conjuring. I can still remember actually lurching backwards in my seat when the ghost witch lady leaped off the top of the wardrobe.
I love scary movies, but I started when I was really young. Like single digits, way too small to be watching scary movies young. I bought the book It by Stephen King when I was like 10. I used my Garfield bookmark as I attempted to read it. I had seen the TV movie and loved it and so I thought I would go backwards and try to read the book that had an updated cover with Tim Curry’s Pennywise clown.
I think I read like a hundred pages or so and realized that it was a very much adult book and not my deal. There was so much graphic sexual content which confused me as I don’t recall that stuff being in the two-part television film. Anyway, I parked the book on my bed stand and never bothered finishing it even now into my adulthood. The sexual stuff just further lessens the fright factor for me. It’s like let’s get to the actual scary stuff will ya?
Like everyone else, I’ve heard about the big movies coming out like Spider-Man No Way Home, The Matrix: Resurrections, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. But, I didn’t hear anything about The Black Phone until I saw a trailer preview from The John Campea Show. And then it was shown on The Reel Rejects. I’m so glad I’m following these more diverse and expansive movie channels or else I wouldn’t have heard about this next scary movie from Blumhouse Productions.
I immediately paid attention when it was announced that The Black Phone starred Ethan Hawke. And then I kind of sighed when I realized Ethan Hawke is playing the bad guy. Ethan Hawke is like Keanu Reeves, The Rock, Tom Cruise or even Tom Hanks to me. They will always be a good guy who you can feel safe with and will come in to save the day. They’re all heroes to me.
His monologue in Reality Bites about how you can have fun or whatever with just conversation and five bucks…that’s the Ethan Hawke I know. The cop who tries to do the right thing in Training Day? Yes, that’s my guy, Ethan Hawke. The ultra cool and romantic trilogy of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight, that’s the Ethan Hawke I swooned over.
Ethan Hawke to me can never be a guy who can kidnap a little boy and imprison him in a room with a black phone. Ethan Hawke to me can never be a guy who will wear crazy freaky looking masks and scream and yell. Although yes, yes, yes, he’s an actor, and actors act. The best ones have range. But for me, there’s just some actors that as a fan, I prefer that range to still stay in the good guy zone.
Due to my bias, I’m not certain how scared I’m going to be watching The Black Phone. Ironically, I just came across the Netflix trailer for Sandra Bullock’s film, The Unforgivable. Again, another actor that I grew up with and love and can only see as only ever being on the good guy side. They’re like Marvel’s Avengers to me. They may play flawed characters, but there’s always a good soul lying beneath it all.
The Black Phone appears to be set in the 70s or 80s, you know, that era when it seemed like there was a creepy child molester kidnapper guy in a van on every corner. The movie starts off with a tad bit of It inspiration with the dozens of missing children posters. A couple of friends are walking home from school until one of them, Finney, comes across Ethan Hawke’s character who for some reason is driving around in a kidnapper’s van and is wearing black top hat and mismatched foundation. The creepy guy is apparently called “The Grabber” based on the local new reports. Finney unfortunately ends up being taken by creepy van guy.
It doesn’t help the scary factor to have the creepy guy be a “part time magician” and talk like how most of us think a crazy kidnapper would sound like. Scary is when it’s just a regular guy with a regular tone of voice who ends up kidnapping a kid. It’s not when he’s trying to talk with some forced tone like all of the Batman actors.
The supernatural scary-ish-ness of the movie comes in two parts. First is Finney’s friend and classmate, a girl who happens to have a psychic connection to what is going on with Finney. She can see things in her dreams which may contain clues to Finney’s whereabouts.
The supposedly scary twist is when Finney is kept captive in a dungeon like bedroom with a broken black rotary phone hanging on the wall and the phone of course starts ringing. The phone hasn’t worked since he was a kid as the so wanting to be creepy Ethan Hawke character explains. But apparently the phone still has some rings in it, as it suddenly starts to ring. Now this is the part that’s probably supposed to put chills in our spines as the voices on the other end of the line are of the dead children in the missing children posters.
Now here is where I’m not certain about the fright factor. When it’s revealed that the ghosts of the missing kids are calling from the beyond to try to help Finney escape, the movie just downgraded from a scary movie to a supernatural and maybe creepy movie. I like that the kids turn the tables on The Grabber and they are fighting back from beyond the grave and they’re doing all they can to prevent Finney from meeting a similar fate. It’s also cute the way the little girl classmate is also trying hard to use her newly found psychic powers to get the police to rescue Finney.
It would be an actual scary movie if The Grabber is also a ghost or supernatural character and so there’s a bit of a more even playing field between the good guys and the bad guy in the movie. And wearing scary masks and makeup and screaming and yelling DOES NOT equal being scary. You're just being loud and annoying. The way the movie’s plot seems to be turning kind of reminds me a bit of the movie The Cell. There’s some supernatural or mysterious elements to it, but it’s not a scary movie.
And I don't know...I can't see Ethan Hawke being a bad guy of this sort. No amount of scary yelling and crazed gesturing can convince me that he's "scary." Since there's kids involved and they are the ones being victimized, that too kind of already doesn't make it scary like ghost story scary but more like creepy angry scary. And as I had mentioned in previous reviews, I'm sort of burnt out and bothered by movies in which the bad guy is the focus and the victims can't fight back effectively. We're in an era where people are standing up for themselves and fighting back. We're all Avengers if we want to be.
Will I still go to the theatre next February to see this? Sure, if it’s playing in one of the theatres we bother driving to. Will I get upset if it skips our theatres? No, I’ll probably stream it or rent it when available.
Comments