Black Phone was based on real events? Everything you need to know before watching

black phone is the new horror movie that opens in Brazilian cinemas on July 21st. The story is based on the short story of the same name written by Joe Hillson of the legendary authors Stephen King and Tabitha King.

Directed by Scott Derrickson(The Exorcism of Emily Rose and The Entity) the plot takes place in 1978 and follows a series of kidnappings in the city of Denver, in the United States, linked to a figure known as the Kidnapper (Ethan Hawke). The serial killer is targeting children in the area, and the next victim is a 13-year-old boy named Finney Shaw (Mason Thames).

The boy is held hostage in a basement that has only a bed and a black telephone. Every time the device rings, he can hear the voices of the Hijacker’s latest victims, who try to help him not suffer the same fate as them.

The synopsis is terrifying in itself and the film is being well rated, according to 224 reviews from the specialized critic, the black phonehas an approval rate of 83% in the Rotten Tomatoes. As for the public, the rating was a little better and the film has 88% approval, with 2500 reviews.

Based on real facts?

In an October 2021 interview with the website news.comthe director of the feature Scott Derrickson explained that to give the film a more real touch, he was inspired by events in his personal life. derrickson grew up in Denver, the same city in which the film takes place, and said that he lived through traumatizing and violent situations like those in the film.

“When I was eight years old, my friend knocked on my door and said, ‘Someone murdered my mother.’ My friend’s mother next door was murdered. And there was a lot of domestic violence, even in my own home and in the homes of many of these kids I knew. It was also right after Ted Bundy went through Colorado, killing people. And the Manson murders had just happened.” derrickson

The story of the protagonist in Telephone Preto portrays the relationship between children and violence well. the protagonist finney (Mason Thames) is a 13-year-old teenager who lives with his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), and his abusive, alcoholic father. At the same time, the boy still has to deal with the bullying practiced by his schoolmates on a daily basis.

“I tried to bring that environment realistically into the film. I felt like I had a lot of work to do with aspects of my past and the impact it had on my life and who I was becoming. It was gratifying to have a place to go back to the past and talk about it,” she concluded.

The filmmaker also explains that at the time the city was very violent, but that he used his traumas to create the terrifying atmosphere present in the film.

“The Black Phone is essentially about childhood trauma, and it really is about what it’s like and what it’s like. There’s nothing about him that doesn’t have some familiarity with people.”

Joe Hill: Black Phone

Before writing the tale Black Telephone and Other Stories (2022) Joe Hill has written numerous other thriller and horror books. The author is the son of the writers Stephen King and Tabitha King, couple is responsible for a series of works of the same genre as It The Thing 1986 book and adapted for cinema in 2017 (Stephan) and Little Realitiespublished in 1980.

Already Joe Hill, who insists on not using his father’s surname, released his first book in 2005 called 20th century ghosts in a collection of 14 short stories. The publication received the Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection. His first novel, The Night Roadwas released two years later and was on the bestseller list in New York Times.

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In 2019, his work written alongside Stephan King was adapted into a Netflix movie. The Field of FearIts protagonists are two brothers who enter a field of very tall grass and end up getting lost inside, without the slightest chance of finding a way out.

Production

Scott Derrickson in addition to directing, he also wrote the screenplay alongside C. Robert Cargill, producer alongside Jason Blum.

The mask used by the Kidnapper in the film required a lot of research. In an interview for the website Los Angeles Times, Derrickson said he went through several specialists before arriving at Tom Savinione of the greatest makeup artists in Hollywood who has worked on the films Friday 13and other horror classics.

the idea of derrickson was that the masks convey three exaggerated expressions of the villain: joy, despair and emptiness in a haunting reinterpretation of traditional comedy and tragedy masks.

Box office

The world premiere of the film took place at Fantastic Fest Festival in 2021. The feature grossed during its first showings, US$ 105.9 million dollars. The production has a production cost between US$ 16 and 18 million dollars. In less than three weeks of its debut in the United States, the film has already raised about US$ 100 million at the world box office and is scheduled to open in Brazil on July 21.

Check out the trailer for the movie below: