Bloomhouse is Back in Black (phone)

Depending on your point of view the marketing for Scott Derrickson's first feature length film since 2016's Doctor Strange is either a masterstroke or has done The Black Phone a disservice. On the one hand it has certainly built anticipation for the movie and Blumhouse look set to do what they do best, turn a tidy profit on a sensibly budgeted project, but there is no denying it has lessened the impact of the finished product. Basically, if you have seen the trailer you've pretty much watched a highlight reel of the whole film and will know more or less everything that is going on.

Fortunately the film is well enough made that its still worth a viewing. The mix of dour atmosphere akin to Derrickson's earlier Bloomhouse effort Sinister and some Stranger Things esqe child characters works surprisingly well. It also manages to take its time in the right places and build tension without becoming bloated and dragging on, a rare feat of screenplay economy in the current movie landscape. In fact the film is possibly at its most tense, and certainly delivers the hardest to watch scene, before the main kidnapping takes place.

Talk of a career best performance from Ethan Hawke is going a bit far but he certainly brings the right balance of menace and patheticness as serial killer "The Grabber" and both child leads are outstanding. In fact the biggest disappointment of the film is that we don't get to spend more time with Madeliene Mcgraw's Gwendoline and her part of the rescue story ends up not counting for much.

Overall there's nothing revalutionary (or surprising if you've seen the trailer) here but it's all good stuff and worth checking out.

6 Hang ups out of 10 phones.

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