"With its 1970s small town setting, high school cast, psychic kids and gnarly neighbourhood villain, it was close to pastiche and, like the very worst of King's stories, it was also inelegantly overstuffed. Funnily enough the call came from inside the family home, as it was based on a short story from King's son Joe Hill, over-extended into a film that was a surprise $161m hit."
"It was the story of the Grabber, a sadistic killer of young boys who would revel in elongating the ritual of their deaths. While sexual abuse was never mentioned, there was something inescapably queer-coded about the character and the historical touchpoints/moral panics he was clearly supposed to refer to, reinforced by Ethan Hawke playing him with a certain swishy, effeminate flare (even before his appearance, the word fag had also been liberally used)."
The Black Phone unfolded as a 1970s small-town pastiche featuring a high-school cast, psychic children, and a grotesque neighbourhood villain, resulting in an inelegantly overstuffed narrative. The central villain, the Grabber, functioned as a sadistic killer who prolonged victims' deaths and carried queer-coded associations accentuated by Ethan Hawke's effeminate performance and the film's language. The film unexpectedly grossed $161m despite tonal opacity and excessive nastiness. Blumhouse now approaches a sequel amid a year of cinematic failures. The original ended with Finn killing the Grabber aided by the ghosts of victims and a psychic sister, forcing the sequel to reposition the killer.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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