If horror fans head on over to Netflix this week, they’ll find a call waiting from Scott Derrickson, the director of Marvel’s “Doctor Strange” and a filmmaker who has made his craft in scaring the living snot out of audiences. The director behind “Sinister” and “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” has one of his works — “The Black Phone” — sitting at number nine on the streamer at the time of this writing, and it’s definitely worth a watch. The 2021 horror film stars Mason Thames (star of the live-action “How To Train Your Dragon”) and a wonderfully unhinged Ethan Hawke, star of the immensely overlooked time-travel movie “Predestination.”
Adapted from the short story by Joe Hill (who also penned “Locke & Key,” before it was brought to life by Netflix), “The Black Phone” is set in 1978 and follows Finney Blake (Thames), the latest captive potential victim of a local child-killer known as “The Grabber” (Hawke). Held in a barren basement with only a mattress, a toilet, and a disconnected black phone for company, Finney counts what he fears might be his final days.
That is until the phone begins to ring, and the callers are The Grabber’s previous victims on the line, offering the hero advice from beyond the grave on how to escape the man who took their lives. What follows is a nail-biting horror that spawned a sequel, and if the star behind the killer of the franchise has his way, could get a threequel too.
Ethan Hawke wants to go to hell in The Black Phone 3
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly following the release of “Black Phone 2” (also directed by Derrickson), Hawke hinted at hopes he’d be returning as The Grabber after the second installment hit theaters on October 17, 2025. “I would like to go to hell with the Grabber. That’s what I’d like to do,” explained Hawke. “I’d like to get to know him. That would be my dream for the third one, to let it be a character piece about what made him, who he is now, and how he’s haunting other people’s dreams.”
By the sounds of things, the man behind the monster of the “Black Phone” franchise is hoping to give Freddy Krueger a run for his money, but it’s just a matter of there being enough hunger from fans to get the job done. Unfortunately, “The Black Phone 2” struggled to match the original’s box office, pulling in just over $132 million, compared to the first film which raked in over $161 million.
Even so, that’s nothing to get ahem (hung up on) considering that the sequel cost $30 million to make. Perhaps there might be some loose change hanging around to pick the phone up one last time. Speaking of underrated horror movies, see what’s waiting for you on Hulu courtesy of Kristen Stewart.
