Do you know Stanley Kubrick? Yes, I mean, even if he is back to life, he can't make a bad movie good, such as "The Black Phone". It can be said that "The Black Phone" is the hottest horror movie right now. In this video, let me share with you my feeling after watching "The Black Phone". If you like my video, please click Follow and click Like. There are spoilers in this video, but not much, maybe just as much as the two official trailers you have watched.
First: It is not scary at all! This movie is actually a movie like escape room with ghost elements. You must have all watched the movies with the theme like escape room. In those movies, the protagonist is trapped in a secret room and has to unlock the mechanism and password for finally escaping from the secret room. "The Black Phone" is a movie like this. From the moment the boy Finney is in danger, the director guides the boy step by step to solve the mystery of the basement with the method for handling supernatural events.
However, because only the boy is trapped in the basement alone, and the masked man has not set any escape targets for him, I cannot feel the tension and excitement brought about by the game rule that "only one person can survive" in other escape room movies. Moreover, the background of this story is set in the 1970s, when there were no high-tech electronic products, so there were almost no scientific and technological means for the boy to crack the mechanism. The place where he is confined is more like a prison cell, with a mattress, a toilet, someone who delivers meals to him, and a telephone. It's really funny. It turns out that the other name of this movie is not the Black Phone, but Prison Break.
The boy in this film is in a desperate situation, but he is very calm. He is so calm that I feel that he is the arch villain of the film. Of course, the film is not as perverted as I thought. But if the box office value is high and Universal Picture decides to produce the second film of it, I think this is a good direction.
Now, let me continue to talk about the boy's calmness. The two protagonists of the film are the older brother and his younger sister. The older brother is suffering in a dungeon, and the younger sister Gwen is dreaming outside. The girl has a supernatural ability. She can dream about things she has never seen before, and these things are the ones which have happened or are actually happening. So, she can see some dead people, or can dream where her older brother is. This ability is really awesome. Why does she have this ability then? The director's answer is: heredity.
The younger sister can dream about supernatural things, and her older brother also has a special ability, that is, he can hear supernatural things. In the town, there have been five children who mysteriously disappeared. It is obvious that these five children were killed by the masked man. The phone in the dungeon doesn't work, but the boy has the special ability to communicate with the dead victims through the black phone in the dungeon. If it is said that the younger sister's supernatural ability is to unilaterally receive messages, then it can be said that the older brother's supernatural ability has been completely raised to a higher level -- He is capable of two-way communication, and can communicate with ghosts and answer their questions.
Guided by the person across the phone line, the boy carries out his own escape plan step by step. He even chats with the person across the phone line. The person across the phone line tells him what not to do, what to do, and how to prepare weapons. The boy accepts very rationally the advice made by the person across the phone line, and does not even suspect that he has hallucinated. I think there are really quite a few mental patients in this film. Besides the serial killer -- the masked man, the boy should have his own mental condition checked after he comes out.
Actually, I mention Kubrick not just because the script is really very bad. The film is adapted according to the short story of the same name, which is written by Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King. Joe also likes to write horror novels, but he doesn't want to live in his father's shadow, so he takes the first half of his name as his fake name. In fact, in the film, the appearance of several deceased children together, and the boy's communication with the people across the phone line, etc., all remind the viewers of the atmosphere of "The Shining", which is produced by his father. Son and father are still alike. Didn't the director say that it's because of heredity?
To be honest, there are no bright spots in the film. I guess the main reason why it is so popular is that the current film industry is really stagnant. People only watch horror movies when they are happy and peaceful. Nowadays, we don't need horror movies at all. It is enough for us to just look at our own lives.
Do you think "The Black Phone" is a good movie? Just leave me messages. Maybe we can give our advice to the director.
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