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Joe Hill’s darkest short story comes to the big screen in Scott Derrickson’s latest film, The Black Phone. Derrickson reunites with Sinister co-writer C. Robert Cargill and star Ethan Hawke to expand and adapt the 7th story in Hill’s award winning collection “20th Century Ghosts.”
Finney (Mason Thames) is a 13-year old boy struggling to dodge the bullies at school and an alcoholic father at home. His only ally is his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) who may or may not have inherited a psychic talent from her late mother. When Finney is dragged into a sinister van by a part-time magician and full-time child murderer known as The Grabber (Hawke), he winds up in a basement cell containing only a dirty mattress and a mysterious black phone. Finney begins receiving calls on the broken device from the Grabber’s previous victims giving him encouragement and clues to survive his awful predicament.
At just nineteen pages, Hill’s original tale is lean and mean, beginning with Finney’s abduction and otherwise taking place entirely within the Grabber’s basement. The reader stays with the frightened boy through the duration of the story, creating a terrifying feeling of claustrophobia and helplessness. In an interview with /Film , Hill said, “When I wrote it, I could feel it struggling to become a novel.” Hill envisioned additional layers of the story, including more victims and calls, but says he “lacked the confidence to write it as a novel.” Hill’s entire story is present in the film adaptation including some exchanges pulled word for word from the original text. But as the author told Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting , “that’s only about 40 minutes of the film,” presenting Derrickson and Cargill with the challenge of creating the longer story Hill originally intended to write.
The film begins with these additions, what Hill describes as a “deeply autobiographical thread about life in the 1970s in the Midwest.” Finney meets future victim Bruce (Tristan Pravong) as the two boys square off on the baseball field. Another future victim named Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora) defends Finney from school bullies. But the majority of Derrickson’s additions involve Finney’s troubled home life, his spunky sister Gwen and his abusive father Terrance (Jeremy Davies). The first scene in Hill’s story, the Grabber dropping his groceries in order to lure Finney to his van, does not occur until at least 30 minutes into the film. Rather than stay with Finney in the basement, Derrickson continually cuts back and forth between his attempts to escape and Gwen’s efforts to find him. These additions significantly alter the tone of the original story for better or worse depending on what kind of horror movie you’re looking for.
In a rare villainous turn, Hawke portrays the infamous child murderer with an eerie flare and diabolical glee. Both versions of the story reveal little about this terrifying man, but what we do learn veers in opposite directions. Hill’s villain is named Al, an extremely overweight part-time clown who often reads as more pathetic than terrifying. Tousling Finney’s hair and sneaking down to the basement just to look at him, Al seems as much driven by a need for companionship as his urge to kill. It’s easier to believe him when he says he is not the killer, giving Finney and the reader a tiny shred of hope in the dark basement cell. Hill’s description contains shades of fatphobia, making the character less malevolent and more pitiable, and adding darker nuance to the story.
Hawke’s Grabber is fully evil, perhaps due to the shock of seeing the well-known actor victimize children. At first seen only in glimpses, he dresses the part of an amateur magician with white face paint and a black cloak and top hat. Once Finney is in his lair, he dons a sinister mask inspired by depression era magicians who would first perform devilish sorcery then reappear for a heroic second act. Created by special effects legend Tom Savini, the mask appears in several different variations, perhaps alluding to the mood of the Grabber or more likely the current stage of his killing ritual. Derrickson also introduces an element of his murders called the “Naughty Boy” Game which seems to involve laying a trap for his victims then viciously beating them as punishment for their contrived transgression.
One of the film’s most chilling sequences is another addition in which Finney nearly escapes from the basement. After refusing to take the bait of an unlocked door, Finney creeps upstairs past the masked killer who has fallen asleep waiting for him. Armed with information gleaned from a call with a previous victim, Finney silently struggles with the combination lock on the kitchen door. He finally opens it, but wakes the sleeping Grabber who charges out into the night after him. It’s one of the few moments in the film where we see Hawke’s face while he drags Finney to the ground and threatens to kill him if he makes a sound. His voice drops to a gravelly whisper as he threatens to gut Finney and strangle him with his own intestines, creating a haunting juxtaposition between Hawke’s movie star persona and the Grabber’s horrific crimes.
Another major addition to the source material revolves around Finney’s home life. Only mentioned in Hill’s story, Finney recalls his parents arguing about the Grabber and imagines their responses to his disappearance. He has an older sister named Susannah who flirts with the occult, reading Tarot and once using a stethoscope held to Finney’s forehead to accurately guess a series of playing cards. But Hill’s Finney is not overly concerned with his family, simply trying to escape the Grabber’s basement. He imagines his sister biking down street after street in search of him, an image Derrickson and Cargill use to spark a significant portion of their adaptation.
Derrickson’s Gwen is roughly the same age as Finney and the two share a close bond likely due to the the recent death of their mother and abuse suffered at the hands of their alcoholic father. Rather than Tarot cards and mysticism, Gwen receives her visions from God in the form of dreams that sometimes come true. Her father fears these abilities and tells Gwen that her mother couldn’t handle the weight of a similar gift and died by suicide to escape it, but it’s unclear what she was afraid of. This part of the story feels vague and thinly conceived, aligning much more closely to the world of occult spirituality than Christianity. Though scenes where Gwen questions her faith are charming, the entire plot line feels muddled and confusing.
Gwen is a fun character and McGraw’s high-pitched voice spitting out creative curse words to grown-ups infuses the dark story with humor. She is also scrappy and proactive, jumping into the fray to defend Finney from the bullies who are attacking him. But her most memorable scene sees her receive a brutal beating from her father for telling detectives about her visions. McGraw’s pleading cries as she tries to escape are heartbreaking and perhaps scarier than any of Finney’s scenes in the basement. Davies plays Terrance as a cruel and unstable drunk adding a darker element to the already pitch black story. It’s unclear when he started drinking or what their life was like before their mother died, but Finney and Gwen live a tense home life dominated by their father’s hangovers and beatings. Derrickson makes an uncomfortable comparison between the Grabber and Terrance as both men use belts to beat children. But this is another plot point that feels poorly fleshed out. Is this connection intentional? Are we meant to believe that Finney has escaped one monster only to wind up in the clutches of another?
These additions to the story are intriguing on their own, but feel tonally jarring in comparison to Finney’s abduction. Every time we leave the basement, we lose a little bit of tension. Gwen gives us another character to identify with, allowing us the safety of following her story rather than waiting in terror with Finney. Her storyline also undercuts the empowerment of Finney’s escape. Derrickson tries to have it both ways and allows Finney to kill the Grabber and save himself as Gwen uses her psychic gift to find the house he’s being kept in. The benefit of staying with him the entire time is that we’re able to completely focus on his own accomplishment, but Gwen’s plotline, charming as it is, steals focus away from his victory. Equally frustrating is Terrance’s abrupt turn once Finney has been found. The abusive father approaches his two children in tears as they huddle together in the back of an ambulance. While his apology is welcome in theory, Terrance’s plea for forgiveness feels unearned and disingenuous given the extent of the abuse we’ve already seen.
The film’s central relationship follows Finney and his contact with the Grabber’s previous victims and each call brings a bit of helpful information or a tool he can use to escape. Bruce is the first to call, delivering a heartbreaking line about not remembering his name because “it’s the first thing you lose” in death. This ominous statement packs a heartbreaking punch in Derrickson’s film, especially combined with home video footage of Bruce’s childhood. In addition to warnings about the “Naughty Boy” Game, one of the callers alerts Finney to a rope hidden within the room. Another helps him locate a hole he dug in the flooring under the tiles. An angry bully named Vance (Brady Hepner) tells him how to break through one of the walls into a freezer on the other side. None of these clues delivers Finney’s salvation on its own, but each tidbit allows him to construct a plan in which he is able to trap and kill the Grabber. As the calls progress, we begin to see the victims in the room, adding insight into their grisly deaths and foreshadowing Finney’s own impending doom.
Hill’s Finney receives several vague calls from Bruce who instructs him to pack the receiver with sand. As Finney chokes the Grabber with the cord, the phone begins to ring again. In a fist-pumping closer, Finney tells the Grabber, “It’s for you” and puts the receiver to his ear. This is where Hill’s story ends, leaving the reader to assume that Finney makes it out of the basement safely. Derrickson ups the emotional ante and allows the Grabber’s victims to speak to their murder, hurling his own ominous phrases back at him. He also includes an emotional scene in which Robin consoles Finney and encourages him once again to stand up for himself. Earlier scenes between Robin and Finney are touching, but this final conversation veers into the saccharine, creating an odd tonal shift from Vance’s previous anger that he has to help save Finney but could not save himself.
While Hill’s story ends with a knockout punch, Derrickson’s film concludes with an unnecessary coda where police explain the Grabber’s two homes and Finney returns to school with newfound confidence. While nice to see a character we’ve emotionally invested in succeed, the adapted ending transforms the terrifying tale into a horrific coming of age drama. Hill’s father Stephen King reportedly described Derrickson’s film as “”Stand By Me” in hell,” and it’s hard to disagree. Derrickson’s Finney learns a valuable life lesson and soldiers on, stronger for what he’s been through. Hill’s original story is much harsher, an unrelenting trip to hell with no comfort to be found.
While both versions have their merits, the film’s adaptation only succeeds for viewers wanting a feel good ending to a story about a child murderer. Others may wish additions to the story had given more information about the Grabber’s previous crimes. Derrickson hints at the “Naughty Boy” Game, but never expands on his motives or modus operandi. The sheer number of additions to the source material begs the question, is the film version of “the Black Phone” an improvement on the source material or does it lessen the stakes of a cold and terrifying story? With such a dramatic tonal shift, the answer depends entirely on what type of horror you’re looking for.
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About a year after The Blair Witch Project took the box office by storm in 1999, Random House started publishing a series of tie-in novels in conjunction with Artisan Entertainment. The first film’s production designer and the director of two related features, Ben Rock, was also consulted about geography and lore. And to help reinforce the “based on true events” quality of Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s story, the author of The Blair Witch Files is Heather Donahue’s teenage cousin, Cade Merrill. This is a clever way of disguising the fact that the eight-book series is ghostwritten by multiple authors.
Every volume of The Blair Witch Files has Cade Merrill, the owner of theblairwitchfiles.com, coming in contact with random people from all over, who may or may not be able to help him discover what really happened to Heather and her two friends in the Black Hills Forest. Merrill also lives in Burkittsville, Maryland, and he regularly visits the area where his cousin went missing. These books occur several years after the infamous event of 1994; Cade states he was eleven when Heather set out to make a documentary about the Blair Witch. This now being 2000, communication through email was more common. So every novel opens with an email from a potential new subject and/or correspondent.
In the first volume’s acknowledgement section, Cade thanks ghostwriter Carol Ellis for her part in “the preparation of this book.” The story then goes straight into an email Cade received from a high-school senior named Justin Petit. He asks for help finding information on a Lee Irwin, the woman his grandfather claims is trying to kill him. Justin explains Irwin has “already killed other people,” according to his grandfather. From there Cade details his research, which includes “100 hours of taped interviews with Justin Petit, written transcripts, newspaper articles, phone conversations, emails, local police and FBI records, and journal entries.” Heather’s cousin has now found himself his first case, one he calls The Witch’s Daughter.
Cade takes a backseat role in the first book; he reports everything without getting physically involved in Justin’s situation. Merrill, however, does interject with the occasional bit of clarification to tie things together. Starting on June 18 at a hospital in Sykesville, Maryland, Justin began visiting his grandfather, Harper Kemp, after the 73-year-old fell down. As it turns out, this was no mere accident; Harper believes someone from his past pushed him. That someone of course being the previously mentioned Lee Irwin. Harper confesses he wronged this Lee person so many years ago when they crossed paths at an orphanage.
Louise “Lee” Irwin’s tragic story began in 1939 when her parents died. Her abusive Aunt Mary wanted nothing to do with the 13-year-old, so she chopped her niece’s hair off and then dumped her at the Oakbridge Home for Boys in Carroll County. Now as “Lee,” Louise pretended to be a boy until she was found out by the other young residents, including Harper Kemp. When she was finally exposed after being tormented by her peers, Lee was shipped off to a girls’ orphanage without even the slightest hesitation. The car accident getting there led to Lee disappearing for six months in the woods before she finally popped up at the orphanage. It was during this time she met the notorious Blair Witch and her homicidal emissary, Rustin Parr.
In the modern timeline of The Witch’s Daughter , Justin races to save his grandfather from the vengeful Lee Irwin, who is closer than he realizes. This involves dredging up the past and uncovering Irwin’s whereabouts since leaving the girls’ orphanage. Now, when the book seems to have telegraphed its outcome even before the second act, there are surprises up until the very end. And much like the 1999 film, there are no definite answers as to what took place that fateful summer. The biggest takeaway here, though, is learning how many lives have been — and continue to be — touched by the Blair Witch.
Cade has an active role in the second novel, The Dark Room, and helping him pool his bizarre experiences into a manuscript is ghostwriter Megan Stine. This second case involves a teenager, Laura Morley, coming to visit Burkittsville after moving away as a child. She randomly shows up after shooting Cade an email, then worms her way into his house while his parents are gone. When they visit the site of Rustin Parr’s residence, which burned down in 1941, Laura swears she can still see the house. Cade does not believe her until he sees the house himself in Laura’s photographs.
While developing the film, Laura and Cade spot more than just a restored building; they see a young Rustin Parr along with his family, twin brother Dale and parents Wilson and Charity. The evidence is unfortunately temporary, seeing as the images faded once the prints were put in a stop bath. Nevertheless, the weirdness only grows along with Laura’s obsession. Her time in Burkittsville all those years ago was short but not uneventful. In addition, The Dark Room goes into the early history of Rustin Parr and shows the extent of the Blair Witch’s influence on him, long before Rustin committed his atrocities as an adult. How that ultimately ties into Laura’s own unique connection to the Witch amounts to a well-crafted twist.
The third book in The Blair Witch Files, The Drowning Ghost, is written by Natalie Standiford, and it is the first “filler” story in the series. As much as this region is known as Blair Witch country, there is an underlying body of other supernatural activity waiting to be solved. One such matter is the mysterious drowning of 10-year-old Eileen Treacle, who perished in the Tappy East Creek in 1825. Once again, Cade sticks to the shadows only to show up in the opening and conclusion, or if he needs to momentarily expound on something brought up in the main plot. He instead allows a college freshman to recount her own perils in Black Hills Forest.
In March of 1999, before going off to college, a Baltimore high school student named Cecilia Northrup chaperoned a school-sanctioned camping trip in Black Rock State Park. She was joined by her boyfriend, Mark Reddick, their two friends, two teachers, and thirty-seven middle schoolers. Their campsite was not far from where Eileen Treacle drowned. And according to legend, the girl was pulled under by a “bony white hand.” With the trip preceding the release of The Blair Witch Project , California transplant Cecilia was unaware of the territory’s biggest attraction. However, she does get a crash course in the myth of Eileen when Mark goes uncharacteristically aggro, people gradually disappear, the water source turns black and gooey, and there are sightings of a barefoot ghost nearby.
The Drowning Ghost is a detour from the overarching plot, but it is also the most thoroughly suspenseful entry so far. Cade’s research, while otherwise enlightening in books where the continuity is integral, is less present here. And with fewer informative interludes, the third Blair Witch Files better resembles a straightforward novel. It indeed operates like The Witch’s Daughter in that way. Casual readers may find themselves more engaged with this book, in view of the inviting setup, tense atmosphere, and ghoulish developments.
This literary expansion of the Blair Witch universe is as entertaining as it is impressively constructed; a lot of work clearly went into making the books. The Blair Witch Files was originally made with young adults in mind, but these stories are not exactly “light reading.” And above all, the series will appeal to anyone with a keen interest in fictional folk-horror, regional phenomena, and paranormal investigations.
There was a time when the young-adult section of bookstores was overflowing with horror and suspense. These books were easily identified by their flashy fonts and garish cover art. This notable subgenre of YA fiction thrived in the ’80s, peaked in the ’90s, and then finally came to an end in the early ’00s. YA horror of this kind is indeed a thing of the past, but the stories live on at Buried in a Book. This recurring column reflects on the nostalgic novels still haunting readers decades later.
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