“The Black Phone” is a brand new, award winning, terrifying film. But one could say it’s not getting this attention because of jump scares, but rather for the plot. Last weekend I watched the film with my friends and we fell in love with the story.

“It’s absolutely terrifying, but not in the same way that other movies are,” said sophomore Allision Rihtar.

The story follows a shy, 13 year old Finney Shaw played by Mason Thames, and his younger sister, Gwen, played by Madeleine McGraw. Both struggle with their abusive father and school life, so basically your classic horror movie kids. Within the first 15 minutes you notice five boys have gone missing, then about 15 minutes later, Finney joins the collection of missing boys. This results in the viewer discovering that Gwen has frequent foreshadowing visions of ghosts, but this really doesn’t affect the story until the very end of the movie.

The kidnapper, played by Ethan Hawke, is titled the Grabber’.  His signature move is dropping black balloons at each of the crime scenes and knocking the victims unconscious. This resulted in Finney waking up in a disheveled basement with only a mattress and a broken black phone on the wall. 

Periodically the Grabber checks in on Finney and tries to persuade him to attempt an escape, but Finney knows better. This is all thanks to the black phone. All the boys previously murdered by Hawke’s physcotic character call Finney and tell him the do’s and the don’ts of the Grabbers game, and teach him how to stay alive. With their advice Finney ends up killing the Grabber, and Gwen ends up discovering all the boy’s bodies. So, it’s a happy ending for everyone as Gwen got her brother back, the boys were put to rest, and Finney got out alive. 

“Horror is my favorite genre, so I had high expectations, but this one took the cake,” said Horror movie fanatic, Stella Macari.

I personally really enjoyed the movie as there was little gore, few jumpscares and only the occasional appearance of the dead boys. The plot had lots of twists as you couldn’t foresee the outcome, so every event that took place kept you on the edge of your seat. The characters were very basic when it comes to horror movies, but the actors portrayed the characters very well. 

The film won multiple awards at the Saturn Award Show back in October including Best Supporting Actor, Best Writing and Best Horror Film. This movie is available to stream on Peacock, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Vudu.

So, I suggest you invite a few friends over, grab some popcorn and lock your doors to watch one of my new favorite horror movies, “The Black Phone”.