Ring, ring, review!: "The Black Phone" comes to call at Bethel College
The horror movie was shown as part of a Halloween celebration put on by the Student Activities Council.
On Halloween night, the Bethel College Student Activities Council (SAC) put on a movie night featuring the 2021 horror/thriller film titled “The Black Phone.”
As everyone knows, a scary film can always be accompanied by a good snack or meal and this movie night was no different. Kiko’s, a small local business located just off of Main Street in Newton, catered as a treat for the watchers who chose to participate. Chicken and carne asada tacos served with either corn or flour tortillas and “blood red” fruit punch were the food choices of the evening.
Going into this movie, my expectations were very high. This past summer, one of my co-workers asked me if I had heard of “The Black Phone,” and I hadn’t. She then proceeded to give me a brief breakdown of the movie and showed me the trailer afterward. Needless to say, I was instantly hooked on the plot of the movie. The fact that Ethan Hawke played the child-abducting antagonist known as “the Grabber” also added to my list of high expectations.
The movie takes place in the 1970s and follows Finney Shaw, a 13-year-old boy who is abducted by a sadistic murderer and taken to a hidden location that had a soundproof basement. It is there that a disconnected black phone starts ringing, and Finney soon discovers that he can hear the voices of “the Grabber’s” past victims — who will do anything to make sure Finney doesn’t meet the same tragic fate.
After watching the film in the Krehbiel Auditorium, which definitely added to the “cinematic” feeling, students weren’t shy about letting their thoughts be known in regards to the movie. The reviews, however, are mixed.
“It felt very unfinished,” junior Lauren McCreary from Skiatook, Okla. said. “There had to have been more for the ending since it was built up so well during the climax of the movie. It was a good movie, it could have just ended differently.”
As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and the suspense it brought. Throughout the film, my mind constantly wondered about endless possibilities while staying on the edge of my seat. In my opinion, I was slightly disappointed with the ending as it ended rather nonchalantly and added no further context to questions viewers may have had.
“It wasn’t my favorite movie, I’m not a fan of horror movies,” concluded junior Macy Sisco from Wylie, Texas. “Also there was a lot of stuff that was unexplained like why he [Finney] could hear the phone ringing and why his sister had visions.”
“The Black Phone” reached 83% on the TomatoMeter on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.9/10 on IMDB.