The Black Phone looks like an extra spicy counterpart to Stranger Things ★★★☆☆

The bleak Denver of 1978 is under the spell of child killer The Grabber, a masked man (Ethan Hawke) who drags students into his black van. Finn (debutant Mason Thames), bullied at school and walking on eggshells at home because of a father’s violent drinking organ, ends up in his basement with only a mattress on the floor and a black telephone on the wall: a kind of portal to the afterlife, so appears, causing previous victims to try to help him.

The Black Phonebased on a short story by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill, looks like a grim and extra spicy counterpart to Stranger Things. With silly hairstyles, plenty of film references that fit into the context (to cult horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for example) and a nice mix of genres. The pleasantly unexplained and open to multiple interpretations transition from kidnapping thriller to supernatural horror is even admirable.