Change Your Image
![](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTgxNTcxNjc1MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTA0MDA5OQ@@._V1_SY100_SX100_.jpg)
ThirtySecondsToGemma
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Black Phone (2021)
All you'll say is "Why" ... "Why, why and just why?"
Finney Blake is a 13-year-old boy who is abducted and forced into a basement that just has a mattress, toilet and a mysterious black phone attached to the wall but it isn't connected to any phone line so therefore is useless.
The basement has been made into a soundproof room.
As Finney soon realises, the black phone rings and he can hear and communicate with past deceased victims of the strange man in the mask that kidnapped Finney.
So it sounds like it's going to be a good movie, the first half of it is actually really good.
The 2 main actors that play brother and sister (Mason Thames as Finney and Madeleine McGraw as Gwen) have really good chemistry that doesn't feel too forced or fake.
You soon learn that they live with their abusing Father. Their Mother is no longer alive but has passed down her psychic tendencies to her Daughter Gwen. She sees things in her dreams that have happened that no one else knows. She is also very strong, brave and fights her battles.
Finney is a shy and bullied child. He doesn't have any Will power to defend himself against his bullies nor his Father and is seem hopeless once kidnapped with no survival skills.
The casting is great, the Director is Scott Derrickson whom is very well credited as a great director for making movies such as 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose', 'Sinister' and 'Doctor Strange'.
The writer of the novel is Joe Hill - again a well credited and admired writer who wrote classics such as 'Heart Shaped Box', 'Horns' and '20th Century Ghosts'.
As for this movie;
Ethan Hawks character; The Grabber is very scary and strange. His mask changes throughout the movie based on his feelings and mood. It makes you wonder why he can't show his face fully and why he freaks out when this happens? You wonder why he kidnaps and kills children? Why does he seems to be picking boys of the same age? Is it something to do with his childhood or purely coincidence? Why does he use black balloons? How hasn't he been caught yet? Especially when you see that he has buried them all in the same area!
Once Finney is in the basement you wonder how is the phone able to ring? Why is it only Finney that had the other children helping him? Is it because his Mum was psychic, he Sister is so maybe he is? Why is there even a phone down in the basement? A boy on the phone even said, "The grabber can hear it ringing". If that's the case why doesn't he pull it off the wall? Why is it there in the first place?
How long was Finney there to be able to dig a hole that big with just his hands?
Everything is just "why and how?".
Nothing seems to get answered and before you know it, Finney has managed to over power The Grabber and walk straight out of his front door.
As for 'The Grabbers' Brother...why was he smart enough to be able to make a huge board dedicated to all of the children that had gone missing, have multiple theories as to who the Grabber was and yet so dumb to the fact that his brother had black balloons, kept going up and down into the basement that he made soundproof whilst wearing a scary mask, having a black van that was parked right outside of their house and never once seemed to be able to put the pieces together, not once!
There are so many questions that are left unanswered and when the credits rolled I was just sat there confused and annoyed.
They could have found a mutual ground for the Grabber and Finney. They could have both of had violent parents, both been bullied and have Finney showing him that he can have a friend and have someone to talk to. Have the Grabber have to fight between his urge to kill and his feelings with finally having someone that understands him and has a friend.
Make it a proper thriller and make us not know what the Grabber is going to do next because of how unpredictable he would be with Finney. And vise versa, have Finney ready with his plan to kill him and escape but not carry out his plan because he empathises with the Grabber and doesn't want to hurt him.
It could have been such a great game of a twisted cat and mouse chase but instead it was predictable and just so confusing.
I'm awarding this a small popcorn 😞
I had high hopes from all the teasers and cast/director behind it! But it was all for nothing.
Snowbound (2017)
Great plot; terrible execution!
Snowbound; a movie about a group of strangers waking up naked outside a cabin in the freezing cold snow. When they enter the house they stumble across a dead body.
They are left cryptic clues by an unknown man and they have to work out who the person is and what they want.
Spoilers from now on.
I completely understand the message the movie is trying to convey.
It's a statement about how as people we are all being watched/led by a darkness that's inside us. A darkness that can be pushed into doing something we don't want to but have been manipulated into.
In the movie, the strangers are led to an solution of acting out all of the actions they did to the dead woman in order to survive.
It shows how people will do anything to look after themselves and not help each other.
We watch how each character is being led by their darkness. They read their clue left by the mysterious man, have a flashback and reach a conclusion of what was said above; hurting someone else to survive.
Once they realise that they had messed up and made a mistake; they run away. People run away from their problems and secrets in life in order to bury their head and forget about it. Even something so serious as what they did to the woman.
The only issue is, they're marketing this as a horror movie; which it's not.
They didn't make the story have a pace that it needed, they rushed parts and dragged parts out.
They should have made it more of a secret as to who was leaving the clues, I feel like they didn't need to have a man with a face. Imagine it never showed his face, every time he was on screen it was just a black hole of emptiness.
Our darkness inside us doesn't have a face because we never see it.
That would have made it a little more mysterious.
They also needed to have something worse than what they did to the dead woman. Don't get me wrong; what they did was sick, but they needed a more sinister act to which each person acted out maliciously towards the woman.
For example, picture this;
The woman died as a result of each member thinking they killed her every time.
Someone could have been too rough with her and thought she died so they ran out. Then another character could come in and help her, lifting her up and out of the swing and when she came around, she thought the person helping her was the one that was too rough with her and she started attacking them. The person could then try to calm her down but end up strangling her and running away thinking she was dead. Another character could have been high on hallucinogenic's and came into the room thinking she was some sort of 'monster' and they stab her; thinking they killed her.
So then each character would think they each killed her, they could then have each of them trying to hide it from eachother because they know they would get killed. Imagine all of them trying to hide what they had done and pushing the blame onto others. It would be a good movie. It would be thrilling.
Then when they realise they were all responsible and know that no one knows who actually killed her because they don't know the order they attacked her in, they all start fighting over who they pick. People could even start attacking others to put an end to it.
That would have been so much better.
I award this movie; a small popcorn