141 reviews for:

The Black Phone

Joe Hill

3.48 AVERAGE


* 3,8 *

Like the movie, I have mixed feelings about this. To be honest the movie finally makes sense, because if you are making 2 hours movie based on a short story,you need to fill a lot of space.

Honestly, I like the movie adaptions but the story itself is not bad and I can imagine why this was a good script to film a movie like this.
dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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dark mysterious sad fast-paced
dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
dark emotional hopeful fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This novella manages to hit every single emotion in such a short space of time, I'm astounded! It built up a really believable world with engaging character relationships in just a few pages, which made the ending all the more satisfying.

(The movie builds on the book in the best way, probably one of the best book to movie adaptations I've ever seen)
dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
phoebe20's profile picture

phoebe20's review

4.0
dark hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
dark fast-paced
dark mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I saw the movie yesterday and loved it very much! So I was eager to read this - most of the dialogue in the story were depicted straight into the film, only the film expanded much more on everything, basically. Makes sense for it being a short story, but I found the movie a lot more compelling with the details, I don't think the fast pace and lack of details here quite worked for it. For example, Finney only has one phone call in the story (from Bruce, same as the first call in the film) where he's given the advice of using the receiver as a weapon straight away, so the phone feels less significant somehow, despite the title. Also, Bruce tells him he's survived the longest, yet it doesn't really feel that way, since we don't see/get told about the different ways he tries to break out like in the film, he doesn't even have as much communication with the captor, either. Once again the short story format is still fine and has a good pace, but I think the story became much more creepy and nasty in the feature film length, like the elaboration on how twisted the grabber really is. The audience also gets more time with Finney prior to his kidnapping and to form a connection with him, get to know him and his sister, and his relations to the other victims compared to the written story. 

Btw, I've lost count of how many times "fat" is used in this, the story points this out about the grabber (also compares him to a hippo) as if that makes him more disgusting, and not the fact that he, you know, kidnaps and murders young boys. Not a fan of that at all, very weird and unnecessary.

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