An intense movie, worth a watch. May make your skin crawl/

Takes me back to my days as a kid growing up in Houston and the Houston Mass Murders. Wiki one of the killers, Elmer Wayne Henley for the story.

Starting from a really good and somewhat original premise, it's not because it addresses a repeated theme (Kidnapper and a basement) that it's generic or copy, it's the same as saying that every mafia movie is a copy of The Godfather.

However, I believe that what was lacking in The Black Phone was to delve more deeply into its characters, using the star Ethan Hawke more, giving his character a dual personality tone, which would consequently result in a greater wealth of details and plot.

The scenes inside the captivity with the boy are really chilling, however, I believe that if the secret of the film was revealed later leaving the viewer in doubt, the film and psychological horror would have worked better, certainly better than jumpscares.

In addition, the film doesn't bring the repercussion of the facts that happened outside the captivity where nobody seems to worry much (Several children from the same location disappear and no parent worries about letting their children walk alone to school? Really? )

In addition, there are certain scenes that add nothing to the story.

There are obviously its positive points, like the scene between father and daughter that is really shocking probably because it involves a child, but it really turned out really good the girl's expression is really creepy (A shame because after nothing an abusive and alcoholic father becomes a loving and caring father).

The movie is obviously far from bad, but for maybe promising so much and creating expectations for something deep or a plot twist and not delivering it ended up frustrating me a little.

I saw a horror movie with a score over 7 and I fell for it again.

This movie had so much potential, but that's about it.

Acting was great as well so it's a shame all of it was wasted.

Watching this movie felt like watching a 2nd movie in a trilogy where you have skipped the first one.

So many unexplained things in this one. Why does the sister have visions? Don't know. Oh it's apparently cause of her mom? Do I need to watch a prequel to see that story? Nah, just consume.

Why is the phone doing what it's doing? Is it explained in the prequel? Nah, just consume content.

Why is the Grabber doing what he's doing? What is his connection to the phone? What is the "game" he wants to play with the kids before he kills them? Don't worry about any of that, just consume.

You can literally remove the sister, the cops and the Grabber's brother from the movie and absolutely nothing would have changed in the ending. They did NOTHING of importance for the main plot. All of their scenes were just shoved into this movie cause the main plot would have been half an hour long.

A classical example of an overrated movie.