The Black Phone (2021)

The opening scene, some kids playing baseball in the Colorado 70s, is underexposed. I'm not sure if that's to fake cloudiness or because it's a flashback, but it just looks improperly shot. Anyhow, it starts with an homage to how great it was to be a kid in the 70s, changes to ominous electronica as a black panel van turns into the idyllic neighborhood road, cuts to credits, and then… gets even worse exposed?? The whole thing just looks weirdly dark.

The vocal mix isn't great either, it's a bit hard to make out what they're saying even though there's basically no sound except voices. The voices of mediocre-acting kids jabbering about 70s stuff so we'll know it's the 70s. And there's a kid snatcher, because that's a 70s thing.

The main kid, Finney, lives with his sister and physically abusive, alcoholic father. His sister's dreams are coming true, the cops want to know why, and her dad beats her with a belt for the audacity. Finney's baseball friend gets snatched, then his kung-fu school friend gets snatched. Finney asks his sister to dream about where they are.

With his kung-fu friend gone, the school bullies beat the shit out of him and his sister. These bullies hit until blood sprays in quantities that surely wouldn't be survivable. Doesn't matter, Finney gets snatched. A soft, gentle masked snatcher man (Ethan Hawke) locks Finney in a basement with a mattress, toilet, and broken black phone on the wall. The snatcher says he's not the snatcher who snatched the others.

The broken phone rings at night. Finney talks to dead kids who don't remember their names, like the closet ghost children in Coraline. They call to give him survival tips. They speak in riddles and flashback clip shows to artificially stretch out the time while we wait for his kid sis to dream up answers. Finney also has visions of the dead kids, because I guess they didn't think the phone was exciting enough. It's not.

The sister's premonitions eventually lead them to the wrong house, while Finney beats the snatcher to death with the black phone. The ghost children make fun of him while he dies. It feels like a Stephen King movie (because it's so dumb).