142 reviews for:

The Black Phone

Joe Hill

3.48 AVERAGE

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

Good but too short to be amazing great. Still worth the read and I highly recommend the movie
fast-paced

la película es mejor.
dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

After seeing this movie two weeks ago, I immediately ordered the short story collection for my fiancé and I. We wanted to see how similar or different it was due to the fact that it’s a full length movie. So far I’ve only read just this story, but I’ll definitely be going back for the others at some point. 

Honestly the author does a pretty good job of getting right into it. With only twenty-something pages how can you not really, but still. It starts with the abduction, and everything that follows is very fast paced. It would be surprising to lose my interest in just 20 pages, but still the author does a great job of making it feel heightened and intense. 

The biggest change in this from page to screen is that the kidnapper is a part-time clown in the story. Which of course they were afraid would read too much like an IT rip because of who the author is. Meanwhile the story itself is very John Wayne Gacy itself, so a clown was unfortunately spot on. Anyway, in the movie he’s a part-time magician to compensate. The stuff they expounded upon was entirely from the short story itself. The baseball scene, other abductions, the sister’s sense. The dialogue is mostly entirely from the story itself. They did a pretty fantastic job adapting honestly. 


Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
challenging dark sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
dark tense fast-paced
dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No