One of the reasonsThe Black Phonestands out among horror movies today is because it blends a couple of different horror genres into one. Other films have managed to mash up what would have been a typical slasher flick with supernatural elements. However, aswell-reviewed as the Ethan Hawke flick is, some of the ideas behind the story draw from other media.
That doesn’t mean thatThe Black Phonewasn’t quite enjoyable. It just means that audience goers that enjoyed what the movie had to offer have some other films they can also sink their teeth into from the safety and security of their homes. As it turns out, it’s not even all that new for a horror movie that centers around child abduction to include an intriguing supernatural twist likeThe Black Phonedoes.
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It
Ithas long been one of the most beloved horror books around, thanks to Stephen King’s unabashed willingness to put children right in the center of danger.Pennywise the clownhas scarred generations of readers with the depiction of the monster that first likes to torment its victims with horrible visions before eventually gobbling them up. While there was a TV miniseries in the 1980s based on It, two new movies launched in the last couple of years have updated the horror tale with better special effects and an even creepier Pennywise.
While It isn’t, strictly speaking, about child abduction so much about the murder and dismemberment of a town’s population by a monstrous entity, this movie has a lot in common withThe Black Phone.One such link is the fact that the authors of the stories the films were based on are related.The Black Phone’s Joe Hillis the son ofIt’s Stephen King. The fact that kids are the eventual heroes of the story is similar as well.
Stir Of Echoes
InStir of Echoes, Kevin Bacon plays the happy father of a young family who suddenly becomes haunted by some sort of ghost in his house. Over the course of the film, his wife and son become a bit worried that Bacon’s character is simply losing his mind, but he knows it’s something much more. By the midway point of the film, it becomes obvious that a ghost girl (played by a young Jennifer Morrison) is communicating with him from beyond the grave about where her body is buried and how she died.
If that doesn’t sound familiar, it should also be pointed out that when she first goes missing, Morrison’s character is reported missing and there’s a hunt underway in town to try and figure out just where she went. If the killer had been sort of slasher like The Grabber, then the movie would be near a carbon copy. As it is,Stir of Echoesis one of the better horror filmsthat has been lost to the trash can of history. Bacon plays a good man who is nearing the edge of his sanity, and finding what happened to Morrison is a truly sad climactic moment.
Split
The M. Night Shyamalan-helmedSplitwas an interesting film, because it was actually a sequel 16 years in the making. While continuing the story of Bruce Willis and his superhero character somewhat, the film mostly centered on a serial killer that would kidnap young girls and then play a kind of game with them until the biggest of the big bad personalities showed up. There are some big differences between this film andThe Black Phone, especially since the audience really gets to meet and to know the serial killer putting young women in danger. However, there is a certain vibe that both movies definitely give off.
There is also the fact thateventually,Splitcenters more on one young woman freeing herself, rather than having to sit and wait for the police to come. She does get some help at the very end, but the idea of a young person getting herself out of a jam sounds quite a bit like the plot ofThe Black Phone.
The Shining
The Shiningis one of the greatest horror films of all time, and one of the absolutespookiest Stephen King stories ever written. While the original film wasn’t all that close to the book, there is still plenty in this movie that could make people feel as though they are watching some kind of offshoot ofThe Black Phone.
Of course, one of thebiggest differences inThe Shiningis that while there are indeed child ghosts, they aren’t exactly helpful, and it sure doesn’t seem as though they are trying to help the kid who is still alive. In fact, instead of trying to help him out of the bad situation, it appears they’d rather he were dead. Still, the whole “ghosts talking to the living in a perilous situation” makes the film feel similar.
Doctor Sleep
The long-awaited sequel toThe Shining,Doctor Sleepis quite a bit closertoThe Black Phonethan its predecessor. This time around, King wrote about a group of monster-people that are all about taking and killing young kids in order to fit their own nefarious needs. There’s also the fact that these particular monsters are fought off by a young girl who has special powers, including the fact that she can talk to dead people and see ghosts.
There’sno telephone inDoctor Sleepthat she uses to communicate with people, but the film’s main character might as well be Finney and Gwen rolled into one package. While there is an adult that does help along the way, it turns out that he’s the kid from the first film, and it’s also very clear by the end that while he does help, it’s Abra Stone that is really the person that is able to take down the Big Bad. In that, the film does feel a bit likeThe Black Phone.
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