Fans of spooky movies will like “The Black Phone,” which stars Ethan Hawke as a scary antagonist.
And by scary, I mean it.
Hawke may be happy with the job he has accomplished as his almost four-decade Hollywood career comes to an end. He has portrayed characters who are intricate and intriguing with admirable subtlety.
He plays The Grabber, a psychopathic child abduction and serial murderer, in this coming-of-age spooky thriller.
The main character in the plot is Finney Blake (Mason Thames), a kid who experiences frequent bullying at school. Fortunately, his buddy Robin Arellano (Miguel Cazarez Mora) often assists in repelling them.
Living with his distant, alcoholic father Terrence and psychic sister Gwen is Finney (Jeremy Davies).
Despite Gwen having a dream about Finney being abducted by a guy in a black van, she is inconsolable when it really occurs, and the police don’t believe her.
While Robin falls prey to The Grabber, Finney falls in love with Robin. However, both his spirit and the ghosts of the other victims assist him.
Upon accepting this ominous part, Hawke stated: “I worked with Scott Derrickson on ‘Sinister’ approximately ten years ago, and I was really grateful that I got to work on that picture because I learned a lot from him about genre movies and how they can interact with the performance.
I have a lot of respect for him since I have watched his work through the years. So you take it seriously when someone like that offers you a movie.
Additionally, I thought “The Black Phone” had a very lovely throbbing heart in the midst of it, unlike 95% of frightening movies.
He said, “Well, the movie is terrible and horrifying, but it has a heart of gold in that it’s actually about a pair of brothers supporting each other and learning how to care for themselves.
I simply found it to be strangely touching, and I had a hard time finishing the writing.
Everyone who has watched the film has undoubtedly gushed about how terrifyingly outstanding he is as The Grabber.
“He is definitely a very broken guy,” he remarked. Because the world was so cruel to him in his views, I discovered that it was simpler to depict him as a wounded animal who could do anything he wanted.
Because of what was done to him, I believe he feels a sense of justice while causing harm to others.
“Individuals who lie a lot are often people who have been lied to a lot. As a result, they don’t feel bad about it since they think it’s just.
This persona, in a manner, bears a generational wound of unlovedness.
The mask that The Grabber always dons is a moving target.
That’s where Scott’s brain is so unique, according to Hawke, who also noted that it was his idea for the mask to alter often.
They put a lot of artistic skill into the mask; at times, it covered the upper half of my face, at other times, the bottom; at times, it was on one side, at other times, the other; at times, it was a grin, at other times, a frown, at other times, it had no emotion at all.
When Scorsese’s Bob Dylan documentary “Rolling Thunder Revue” had a passage that reads, “You know someone is telling you the truth when they are wearing a mask, and that they’re lying when they are not,” Scott and I would discuss it.
It was enjoyable to have them all out and choose the appropriate mask for each scenario because there was simply something so potent about the way these masks were created. Masks are significant horror-related archetypes.
Hawke extolled the virtues of Thames, his younger co-star.
“Meeting these young folks who are so in love with cinema is so much joy,” he remarked. I experienced that when working with Ellar Coltrane on “Boyhood” and Joshua Caleb Johnson on “The Good Lord Bird,” two young artists who have such a strong sense of humour and delight.
Mason was overjoyed to be a part of the film, and he became so engrossed in the project that he made working on the set a blast.
So, it was a fun and rich setting. He is a talented young actor who performed a great job, and Madeleine McGraw, who portrays his sister Gwen, may also be praised for her work.
Hawke gave the following reasons for seeing this film: “Fear is a significant part of our everyday lives, and a lot of the time we simply don’t know what to do with it. Therefore, portraying it on screen or stage has significance because, in the end, it teaches us how to manage it.
All around the country, theatres are playing “The Black Phone.”