Just the Ticket #114: The Black Phone (& MCU Stuff)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Ticketmaster

I've been a big fan of Stephen King for a long time. He's an ambitious writer with regard to world-building and character alike, especially in his early works and through the resulting Dark Tower series, which used existing characters and themes from throughout his portfolio (including collaborations, short story collections, Richard Bachman works, and obscure genre explorations like The Eyes Of the Dragon) and popular culture, and archetypes and meta-references to the conclusion of The Dark Tower have cropped up in his more modern works (Cell, Lisey's Story, Duma Key, Doctor Sleep, etc.). including adaptations in other media like comic books, streaming series, and movies. And his sons have taken to the family business, as well.

For a brief detour into my past looks at Stephen King's works, here's a set of links for your enjoyment and my improved analytics:

The Dark Tower: Cover Charge #2: The Heroic Journey (Part II)

Secret Window (Critical Quickie selection): Ticket Stubs #24: Plot Twists & Cold Mountain

The Dark Tower: New Piece Offerings (NPO) #11: Fixing The Dark Tower

Sleeping Beauties: Cover Charge #5: A Tale Of Two Kings

But if I'm being honest, my age and the decreased free time that the modern world has thrust upon me have shifted me away from reading (with the exception of web comics, audiobooks, and college texts), so I haven't touched a novel from any member of the King family (or Dean Koontz or Brian Harmon) in several years. So when the opening credits of today's movie selection revealed that it was based on a short story by Joe Hill (so penned to improve his credibility as a horror author, to not rely on his family legacy even though he looks exactly like a younger, heavily bearded incarnation of his father, and to avoid fans saying, "are you joking?" when they recognize him in public), I was taken completely by surprise. You can watch the movie for yourself on Peacock to avoid spoilers, and the usual expression of my thoughts will begin after the break.

While you're watching The Black Phone, though (assuming you can read this and watch a movie at the same time), I also watched the second episode of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law this week (new episodes every Thursday on Disney+), and it doesn't seem like a show where a lot will happen. The CGI looks like a cross between Henry Cavill's digitally shaved mustache and something from a twenty-year-old Matrix parody, and it's very dialogue heavy so far. Two episodes have been spent on buildup, with the first episode focusing on Jennifer Walters being infected with Bruce's blood, being subjected to his passive-aggressive sociopathy and narcissism as she repeatedly Hulks better than him in nearly every way (there is still that part where she transforms and murders three horny Chads offscreen, but funny lawyer show with superheroes, and it did happen offscreen, so...), learns that she can break the fourth wall (which "Smart Hulk" can sense, but doesn't understand), and manages to hide from the public until a super-powered social media influencer uses the aforementioned Matrix parody effects to interrupt Jen's closing argument and forces her to Hulk out and one-shot the villainess. In the second episode, Jen must learn to deal with the social benefits and professional drawbacks of her courtroom "stunt," navigate the classic group of annoying family members, and adjust to her new job as an "enhanced individual" advocate at a formerly rival firm. We learn here that Jen can break the fourth wall without anyone hearing her and in altered time (even though, in the first episode, she had to have a room to herself to narrate her origin story to us in real time), that her first client is Emil Blonsky/the Abomination (played by Tim Roth, as he was in The Incredible Hulk, and serving as a second example that Hulk problems are a Bruce Banner issue, not a Hulk issue), that the show takes place surrounding the events of Shang-Chi & the Legend Of the Ten Rings, and that, at the beginning of the episode, the title briefly changes to She-Hulk: Attorney For Hire. This is a possible reference to the Heroes For Hire comics and eponymous team, of which She-Hulk was an off-and-on member. The trailer revealed that Daredevil (Vincent D'Onofrio reprised his Kingpin role in the Hawkeye series, and Charlie Cox appeared in No Way Home as Matt Murdoch, displaying Daredevil abilities in his brief cameo as Peter's lawyer) could appear in the series at some point, Wong is confirmed to appear in the show in response to Abomination's prison escape (and he is the current Sorcerer Supreme in the wake of Strange's snap "death"). So could we see an MCU retry at the Defenders in the future, featuring Daredevil, Wong, Mike Coulter returning as Luke Cage, Shang-Chi (because Iron Fist worked out so well), and She-Hulk? Also, it would make my day if the series' post-credit scene doubled down on the wall breaks by revealing that Deadpool was watching it the whole time.

Speaking of breaks, here's the image break for this post.

From Jennifer Walters thinking "She-Hulk" was a stupid name because the MCU is using that joke more frequently than trains, Terminator references, and skybeams combined, to today's Just the Ticket selection: The Black Phone, which is about a serial kidnapper and child-killer (played menacingly by Moon Knight villain Ethan Hawke), whom the media and the public have dubbed "The Grabber." Though it sounds less like the chilling moniker of a serial killer than something your grandparents ordered on QVC to get boxes of cereal from the top shelf, or the local Karen bought at Wal-Mart so she wouldn't have to touch her dog's poop at the park, "The Grabber" is a self-proclaimed magician with a black van full of black balloons who wears a black suit and black tophat so he can lure local children to their doom and imprison them in a room with The Black Phone until such time as he decides to "free them" and beat them to death with a black belt (but not the karate one). While "caring for" his captives, "The Grabber" wears a creepily designed, two-piece devil mask (which he alternately wears all or either half of, which is a sure sign that no matter what he tells them, his victims have seen his entire face piecemeal, and they are definitely going to die). The disguised child-killer with balloons isn't the only King trope that crops up in this film, though. As any good horror film should do, The Black Phone spends the majority of the first act introducing the human characters, even if they are short-lived, one-dimensional versions of Stephen King tropes like the psychic child, evil, racist bullies, the girl with the abusive, alcoholic father (said abusive, alcoholic father played with a fractured, unhinged species of care by Jeremy Davies, who previously had a masterful early performance as Charles Manson in 2003's Helter Skelter before joining the casts of Lost and Justified), the resourceful child hero, the local police with a perpetually unsolved case on their hands, and the bait protagonist who dies to move the plot forward. When the resourceful child hero gets Grabbed while looking for his best friend (the bait protagonist) who was Grabbed the previous day, his sister, who is reluctant to voice her prophetic dreams to the local police because her mother's psychic powers drove her to suicide and her alcoholic father beats her with a belt if she brings up her own psychic dreams, spends her spare time tracking down her brother and The Grabber.

The Grabber's motives are never really explored beyond "kidnap children, make them feel 'safe,' allow them to try escaping, then kill them for it." A Dexter villain he most definitely is not. Bad man kills kids, and that's it. Not that that's a bad thing. As fans and foes of my Chucky reviews may know, I think villain explanations can ruin their fear factor. But there are also cases, like book-to-movie adaptations, where you can tell--even without reading the book--that something necessary and "more" was left on the cutting room floor. The horror here is mostly psychological and suspense-based, playing like a one-on-one, less effective take on what M. Night Shyamalan achieved with Split. But between the boy hero's interactions with The Grabber (building up the mystery of the titular object, false hopes of escape, and a few food deliveries), and his sister's B-plot, the movie gets incredibly stupid. At various points in the story, the hero is contacted by the nameless spirits of The Grabber's previous victims via the broken, disconnected Black Phone in his concrete cell (one such spirit claims that, despite the room being soundproofed and the concept never being addressed beyond this throwaway line, The Grabber can hear The Black Phone, too). Using advice from beyond the grave, which he follows almost exactly despite all of it previously having led to each of their deaths, our hero is able to avoid suspicion despite ripping the bars out of the basement window, breaking through a concrete wall into the killer's meat freezer, ripping a cable line out of the floor, and clogging his toilet with dirt while digging a Shawshank Redemption tunnel ten feet underground. The basement prison is even stocked with enough rugs and carpeting to either decorate a small mansion or allow MacGuyver to disarm the entire world's nuclear arsenal in his sleep. Furthermore, The Grabber is not only able to kidnap children in broad daylight and imprison them in the basement of the house that he shares with his cocaine-enthusiast brother who is unknowingly investigating him, it is later revealed (for the purposes of a weakly executed, asynchronicity-based, false hope twist) that he owns an identical house directly across the street that he has somehow managed to transport his dead victims to for burial over the past decade or two without being noticed. Like I said, the dumbest of dumb writing.

Oh, and if the It references weren't obvious enough before, the hero's psychic sister has a scene where she is riding around in the rain in search of The Grabber's killing grounds, and she is wearing a yellow rain slicker similar to what George Denbrough wore when he was killed by Pennywise at the beginning of It. And then she almost literally runs into ghosts.

In short, The Black Phone succeeds in its horror elements thanks to the influence of modern horror film production giants Blumhouse, source author Joe Hill, and renowned horror film writer/director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange, the Sinister franchise, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, among others). But in execution, it is an inferior derivative of things we've seen succeed in other media (including the King and Shyamalan works I mentioned above). Well worth the journey and the remaining, massive library that Peacock's modest subscription price has on offer, but don't think too much about what you're watching if you intend to enjoy it.

C-

Time and energy permitting, I will have an Anime Spotlight ready for Monday, focusing on time travel, Japanese street gangs, and an AI pop idol.

Ticketmaster,

Hanging Up.