The Black Phone

The Black Phone

2005 • 316 pages

Ratings5

Average rating4.2

15

After seeing this movie two weeks ago, I immediately ordered the short story collection for my fiancé and I. We wanted to see how similar or different it was due to the fact that it's a full length movie. So far I've only read just this story, but I'll definitely be going back for the others at some point. 

Honestly the author does a pretty good job of getting right into it. With only twenty-something pages how can you not really, but still. It starts with the abduction, and everything that follows is very fast paced. It would be surprising to lose my interest in just 20 pages, but still the author does a great job of making it feel heightened and intense. 

The biggest change in this from page to screen is that the kidnapper is a part-time clown in the story. Which of course they were afraid would read too much like an IT rip because of who the author is. Meanwhile the story itself is very John Wayne Gacy itself, so a clown was unfortunately spot on. Anyway, in the movie he's a part-time magician to compensate. The stuff they expounded upon was entirely from the short story itself. The baseball scene, other abductions, the sister's sense. The dialogue is mostly entirely from the story itself. They did a pretty fantastic job adapting honestly. 

August 6, 2022Report this review