Stephen King Described THE BLACK PHONE as "STAND BY ME in Hell"
The Black Phone is not only a great horror movie, but it’s also one of my favorite movies of the year. It’s super dark, but it’s so good! It definitely takes audiences on an extremely intense wild-ass ride that will have audiences on the edge of their seats.
The movie tells the story of Finney Shaw (Mason Thames), a shy but clever 13-year-old boy who “is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer’s previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney.” The movie also stars Madeleine McGraw as Gwen, Finney’s kid sister who has psychic dreams.
Well, it turns out that Stephen King is a big fan of the film as well. During an interview with /Film, director Scott Derrickson was asked about what common ground the film shares with coming-of-age movies. It’s here that Derrickson revealed that Stephen King, the father of Joe Hill, who wrote The Black Phone story, loved the movie. He described it as “Stand By Me in hell”, which is a perfect description.
"I know that [author Joe Hill] showed it to his dad,. And Stephen King's comment... He saw it and apparently loved it. And his comment to Joe was, It's 'Stand By Me’ in hell,’ which I thought was great."
Derrickson goes on to say that King’s quote should be on the movie's poster, and goes on to credit the story's realistic depiction of trauma as part of what makes the film resonate as a cross-genre story:
"I think that it's all about the truthfulness of those young kids. I felt that the heart and soul and emotion of the movie would be reliant upon how well I could establish, not just their individual characters, but the bond between the two of them, and make the audience really root for their connection, and that would sustain the emotion of the movie."
This coming of age horror film is based around "childhood trauma and the resilience of children." Go see this movie when it’s released on June 24th, 2022.