I have to be careful when I call The Black Phone "horror," because it certainly wasn't all that scary. The situation was certainly horrifying, as was Handsome Hawke's performance as The Grabber, but I don't think this ranks among other horror films that are genuinely unsettling. Nevertheless, it is very captivating. There are clear protagonists and antagonists, and my want as an audience member for the protagonists to prosper and the antagonists to falter are delivered effectively. This is done by taking time in the first act of the film to lay the groundwork with the characters, setting, mystique, and having a great cast.
Speaking of which, the child actors in this are phenomenal. They get the most screen time, and they could have really ruined the film with bad deliveries or general annoyances that can come with the demand of an R-rated, adult-themed movie, and in the 1970s no less. They really had to understand their element, and the main brother and sister had to show us their chemistry not just when together but also when apart. They had a lot to work with, and lived up to their roles. This was of course complemented by Hawke's first ever villain role, portrayed very obscurely yet charismatically (not theatrical like V, but not animalistic like Leatherface). You're not ever really knowing what he's thinking, what he'll do next, or why/when he'll decide to wear different masks or illicit a new kind of conversation. They could have gone deeper into it narratively, and restraining from it let the acting play first fiddle. Because of this being a strength in the film, I'd say this was the right choice.
I mentioned the first act being a lot of setup, and for someone who didn't see trailers or read a plot synopsis I was confused what kind of movie we were going to get. Things could feel a little disjointed when we would go directly from upbeat 70s music to a chilling score, or from dark and heavy thematic elements to campy one-liners from children. There are also a lot of characters introduced and questions of what subplots may be of use once the main plot takes course. Even more so, I didn't know why the movie had its title for quite a while. However, one thing they did well compared to Sinister was they let us know slightly early on that there would be some supernatural happenings going on, and it allowed you to buy in with and suspend disbelief for in a very natural way. Not only that, but this movie doesn't work without those elements in place, whereas I'm going to spend some of my summer finishing my Sinister editing project that removes all the supernatural elements and works better without them. The Black Phone carefully lays all the pieces of events before them and I think most of them are paid off, but definitely not all of them. There was also one thing that I buried my head in my hand for thinking about for like five minutes, wondering if they were giving us a foreshadowing clue; turns out it wasn't even a red herring, and was just something that I stupidly was giving more meaning to than was ever intended.
I do want to nitpick on two things that this movie (and many movies) botch on a filmmaking level. One is a baseball scene that makes you question whether they even watch the sport with the way that the shots are composed, and another is that classroom trope where the bell rings as the teacher is teaching like they had thirty seconds to deliver a lesson and weren't aware they needed to wrap up (as a baseball aficionado and a school teacher, these really get to me). It's not these things in particular and I know from the outside looking in people probably don't care, but there can be an intangible effect on these things when done right that just make for a more competently-made film overall. I keep going back to the greatness that I believe is Top Gun: Maverick, and you see YouTube videos of real-life pilots reacting to how 95% of what is done in the air of that film is completely authentic, how they would do it, etc. And the rest is enhanced for the sake of the film. In the case of the baseball and school scenes (plus some bullying scenes), there seems to be much less care that occurs here and aren't used to enhance the film either. These are really dumb nitpicks, but I'd like to see films actually get these right because they never seem to.
Anyway, this movie was really good. Scott Derrickson is starting to have a very distinct look and style to his films that works for this genre, and I think it is made better by having a team of players who he has worked with in the past (even James Ransone is in this picture). I think this is meant for a more mature audience, and those who lived in the era (which I did not) will probably appreciate the nods to that time period. It wasn't a particularly scary film, but it did better things than most horror films did with shot composition, acting, sound/set design, and story to just be an overall better film than most of them (there was one very intense "hold your breath" kinds of scenes for sure though, and they threw in a couple of jump scares likely to make sure they had something for the trailer). I don't think I'm trying to rewatch this immediately, but I'm definitely willing to have conversations about it within the moviegoing community.
