The Black Phone

 

By http://www.impawards.com/2021/black_phone.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68817528

The Black Phone came up on Prime Video and I finally decided to watch it after putting it off for a week or so. Intense! In the sense of maintaining my interest, it was good. But my interest was maintained in the middle of my viscera. It was pretty disturbing. I guess that's the point.

We all grew up being told not to talk to strangers and beware people who snatch children. Back in the day we called it kidnapping. The imagery in The Black Phone of how kids get snatched was every bit as terrifying to me as anything I ever imagined as a child: deceived, grabbed, drugged, and thrown into the back of a van. Then imprisoned in a basement waiting to be killed. After that, the plot took a supernatural turn.

It was such a perfectly constructed story that I suspect the author of not following his father's advice to not use an outline when writing fiction. The author was Joe Hill, a pseudonym. His father is Stephen King. They are effective writers but I can't help but think it is a family of sickos.