Review: ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ (2025), starring Mason Thames, Gerard Butler, Nico Parker and Nick Frost

June 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

Nico Parker, Mason Thames and Toothless in “How to Train Your Dragon” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“How to Train Your Dragon”

Directed by Dean DeBlois

Culture Representation: Taking place on the fictional island of Berk, the fantasy/action film “How to Train Your Dragon” (based on the 2003 children’s novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a multiracial people, black people and indigenous people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: In a Berk culture where humans are supposed to hunt and kill dragons, the misfit son of Berk’s leader befriends a dragon and doesn’t want to kill any dragons.

Culture Audience: “How to Train Your Dragon” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise and family-oriented fantasy films that teach respect for animals.

Gerard Butler and Toothless in “How to Train Your Dragon” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

The unsurprising live-action remake of the 2010 animated film “How to Train Your Dragon” has engaging performances and is more visually dazzling than its fully animated counterpart. The remake falls short in the personalities of the teen supporting characters. The sidekick teen characters in the 2025 remake just aren’t as amusing or as interesting as they are in the 2010 movie.

“How to Train Your Dragon” is based on author Cressida Cowell’s fantasy book series that began with 2003’s “How to Train Your Dragon.” The book series has spawned several feature films and short films. The “How to Train Your Dragon” book series is aimed at children, but the movies have wider appeal to many generations.

The 2025 version of “How to Train Your Dragon” reunites some of the same principal filmmakers who worked on the 2010 “How to Train Your Dragon.” Dean DeBlois, who co-wrote and co-directed the 2010 “How to Train Your Dragon” movie, returns as the sole writer and director of the 2025 “How to Train Your Dragon” and adds the title of producer. John Powell continues as the franchise’s music composer for the “How to Train Your Dragon” movies.

Unlike other live-action remakes of beloved animated films, 2025’s “How to Train Your Dragon” doesn’t make any drastic changes to the plot of the animated movie. This “play it safe” approach is fine, but it doesn’t leave room for doing anything groundbreaking or truly unique to the story. Fortunately, the remake has talented cast members who do the best that they can in bringing these characters to live-action life.

In both “How to Train Your Dragon” movies (which take place in an unspecified period time where there is no electricity or modern technology), the Viking humans on the fictional island of Berk are at war against dragons, which are blamed for killing hundreds of people. The human residents of Berk have retaliated by killing thousands of dragons. Dragons are also blamed for killing livestock that are used for Berk’s food supply.

The dragons come in many shapes and sizes. Most of them live in a secret underground nest that the Berk residents are trying to find. Night Fury dragons are considered the most dangerous and the most elusive dragons to kill. The most important residents of Berk are those who are the most successful dragon slayers. Anyone who finds the secret dragon’s next would be considered a hero in Berk.

The chief of Berk is Stoik the Vast (played by Gerard Butler, who reprises the same Stoik role from the animated “How to Train Your Dragon” films), a gruff and macho widower who hates dragons because his wife was killed by a dragon several years ago. Stoik is raising his and wife’s only child—a 15-year-old son named Hiccup (played by Mason Thames)—to become Stoik’s heir. But so far, Stoik is disappointed because he and many other residents of Berk think that Hiccup is a wimpy coward when it comes to many things, including combat and killing dragons.

Hiccup gets empathy from a grizzled blacksmith/dragon trainer named Gobber (played by Nick Frost), who sometimes acts more like a father figure to Hiccup than Stoik does. Gobber is also Stoik’s longtime best friend. Hiccup is an introverted, misfit loner who lacks confidence and wishes that he could get the respect of Stoik.

Hiccup shows skills in making things with his hands. To prove he has some worth as a potential dragon slayer, Hiccup makes a dragon trap that he places in a remote wooded area. This trap will lead to events that will change the lives of Hiccup and many other people in Berk.

Teenagers in Berk are trained to kill dragons. Gobber leads an elite dragon-slaying training program, which is also an intense competition. The winner of the competition is considered to be on the fast track to becoming a future leader of Berk.

Stoik pressures Hiccup to enroll in this training program, even though Hiccup doesn’t want to kill any dragons. The other teens who are in Gobber’s program are ambitious Astrid (played by Nico Parker); insecure Snotlout (played by Gabriel Howell); goofy Fishlegs (played by Julian Dennison); and bickering fraternal twins Ruffnut (played by Bronwyn James) and Tuffnut (played by Harry Trevaldwyn).

It should be noted that in this fantasy world, Berk is a place where people have varying accents, for no reason given. Stoik has a thick Scottish accent. Hiccup and Astrid have American accents. (Parker is British in real life.) Fishlegs has a New Zealand accent because Dennison is from New Zealand. Almost everyone else has English accents.

In the early days of the training program, Astrid is resentful of Hiccup because she thinks he is underserving scion who gets unfair advantages in life because of nepotism. Astrid, who comes from a working-class background, openly tells Hiccup that she plans to become the next chief of Berk when she’s old enough. Hiccup responds by saying that Astrid, not Hiccup, is the type of child that Stoik wants.

Snotlout has similar “daddy issues” because he desperately wants the respect and approval from his emotionally aloof father Spitelout (played by Peter Serafinowicz), who is one of the dragon-slaying warriors in Stoick’s army. Fishlegs is mainly the training group’s comic relief. Ruffnut and Tuffnut are bratty and try to outdo each other, but these two characters are less appealing in the 2025 version of “How to Train Your Dragon” than the 2010 version.

One day, Hiccup finds out that a jet-black, young male Night Fury dragon has been caught in his trap. Hiccup takes out a knife to kill it, but he can’t do it. Instead, he lets the dragon free from the trap. The dragon is hostile to Hiccup but doesn’t hurt Hiccup.

Half of the dragon’s tail is missing from a trap injury, which prevents the dragon from flying. Hiccup feels guilty about making the dragon disabled. And so, he brings food to the dragon and eventually makes a prosthetic that he attaches to the dragon’s tail so the dragon can fly. Hiccup names the dragon Toothless because the dragon has retractable teeth.

As already shown in the movie’s trailer, Hiccup eventually earns the trust of Toothless and learns to ride on Toothless like someone would ride on a flying horse. Hiccup keeps his budding friendship with Toothless a secret because he knows it’s taboo and he could get punished for befriending a dragon. The movie’s trailer already shows that Toothless won’t be kept a secret for very long.

The rest of “How to Train Your Dragon” plays out exactly like you think it will, if you’ve seen enough of these types of movies and especially if you saw the 2010 “How to Train Your Dragon.” The characters of Hiccup, Astrid, Stoik and Spitelout greatly benefit from live-action performances. Thames is especially good at making Hiccup believable in the action and dramatic scenes.

The 2025 version of “How to Train Your Dragon” excels the most in its visual effects, which are award-worthy. Toothless is even more adorable and soulful in the 2025 version of “How to Train Your Dragon” than he was in the 2010 version. The action sequences in the 2025 movie are thrilling, immersive and occasionally stunning. The 2025 version “How to Train Your Dragon” didn’t take any risks in changing major parts of the story, but sometimes it’s better not to mess with a classic.

Universal Pictures will release “How to Train Your Dragon” in U.S. cinemas on June 13, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on June 11, 2025.

Review: ‘Monster Summer,’ starring Mason Thames, Julian Lerner, Abby James Witherspoon, Noah Cottrell, Nora Zehetner, Patrick Renna, Lorraine Bracco and Mel Gibson

November 10, 2024

by Carla Hay

Mason Thames in “Monster Summer” (Photo courtesy of Pastime Pictures)

“Monster Summer”

Directed by David Henrie

Culture Representation: Taking place in Edgartown, Massachusetts, in 2000, the horror film “Monster Summer” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A group of teens and an ex-cop try to solve the mystery of an apparent witch who is targeting children for spells and kidnapping.

Culture Audience: “Monster Summer” will appeal mainly to people who like watching teen-oriented mysteries about the supernatural and don’t mind if the screenwriting and some of the acting are substandard.

Julian Lerner, Mason Thames and Abby James Witherspoon in “Monster Summer” (Photo courtesy of Pastime Pictures)

Corny to a fault, “Monster Summer” is a lightweight horror movie about a group of teens and an ex-cop trying to solve a supernatural mystery involving a witch. Amateurish acting and a weak screenplay lower the quality of the film. “Monster Summer” can be watchable to some viewers, but there are enough cringeworthy moments for the movie to not be worth the time for anyone looking for a compelling and interesting mystery story.

Directed by Davd Henrie and written by Bryan Schulz and Cornelius Uliano, “Monster Summer” takes place during the summer of 2000, in the Martha’s Vineyard small city of Edgartown, Massachusetts. It’s somewhat fitting that this movie takes place in 2000, because a lot of “Monster Summer” looks like a very outdated made-for-TV movie in a world where we now have Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” Much of the story’s mystery is clumsily told.

In “Monster Summer,” the protagonist is Noah Reed (played by Mason Thames), who’s about 13 or 14 years old. Noah, who is an aspiring journalist, lives with his kindergarten-aged sister Lilly Reed (played by Emma Fasano) and widowed mother Abby Reed (played by Nora Zehetner), who operates a bed-and-breakfast business from her home. The family is grieving over the death of Mason’s father, who was a journalist/writer. Like a lot of kids in Edgartown, Noah wants to eventually move out of Edgartown and do something ambitious with his life when he’s old enough to get his own place.

Noah (who is intuitive and likeable) is on a Martha’s Vineyard Little League baseball team with his three best friends: neurotic Eugene Wexler (played by Julian Lerner), tomboyish Sammy Devers (played by Abby James Witherspoon) and confident Ben Driskel (played by Noah Cottrell), who is the star player on the team. One day, all four pals are caught trespassing in the shed of a cranky neighbor named Gene Carruthers (played by Mel Gibson), a retired police detective who has a reputation for being a mysterious loner.

Gene, who is divorced, has a tragedy in his past: In 1965, his 5-year-old son disappeared. Gene was under suspicion for this disappearance, but no arrests were ever made, and his son was never found. Gene’s marriage did not survive this family tragedy. Gene’s ex-wife is still alive but hasn’t been in contact with Gene for years.

Noah has a semi-secret crush on a schoolmate named Ellie Evans (played by Lilah Pate), but Ellie is attracted to Ben, who asks her out on a date. Ellie eagerly says yes. Ben doesn’t find about Noah’s crush on Ellie until after Ben asks Ellie on the date, and Noah graciously tells Ben that he’s okay with Ben and Ellie dating. Ben and Ellie go swimming in a nearby lake for their first date.

But something bizarre happens on this date: Ellie and Ben both see what looks like an elderly witch when they’re underwater. The witch attacks Ellie and Ben. And the next thing you know, Ben is recovering in a hospital and is soon discharged.

After this attack, Ben seems to be in a daze, and he barely talks. Ellie tells Noah that she and Ben were definitely attacked by a witch, who cackled right before a bright light flashed where they were. Ben isn’t talking much, but his version of the story is different from Ellie’s. According to Ben, there was no witch and everything was an accident. Ellie’s story sounds far-fetched, especially to people who don’t believe in the supernatural.

Noah tells Gene about this strange occurrence. Gene doubts Ellie’s story that Ben was pulled down in the water by a mysterious force because there’s no physical evidence that Ben had these types of injuries. But then, another “witch attack” happens to another teen named Kevin Lampkey (played by Gavin Bedell), who was at a campfire party in a wooded area called No Man’s Land, when he was lured into a secluded place by the witch disguised as a teenage girl. Kevin also become nearly mute after this encounter.

It’s enough to convince Gene to join Noah in this investigation because Gene confesses that he believes his missing son might have also been kidnapped by something supernatural. Other characters that appear in the movie are Miss Halverson (played by Lorraine Bracco), a bed-and-breakfast guest in Noah’s family home; a baseball umpire (played by Patrick Renna) who is always at the teenagers’ Little League games; and Edgar Palmer (played by Kevin James), the cynical editor of the local newspaper.

“Monster Summer” has an awkwardly constructed story that lurches from one scene to the next. One of the worst scenes is when Noah and his pals confront Miss Halverson when they suspect her of being the witch. Thames and Gibson (who seems to be permanently typecast as playing grouchy characters) show capable acting skills, but many of the supporting cast members don’t have this level of talent. Longtime actors Bracco and James aren’t in the movie for very long to make much of a difference.

The mystery in “Monster Summer” just isn’t very interesting. By the time secrets are revealed, and there’s an inevitable showdown scene, it all looks haphazardly thrown together. “Monster Summer” isn’t a complete waste of time, but viewers’ time is much better spent on the abundance of higher-quality entertainment about supernatural mysteries.

Pastime Pictures released “Monster Summer” in U.S. cinemas on October 4, 2024. The movie was released on digital and VOD on November 8, 2024.

Review: ‘The Black Phone,’ starring Ethan Hawke

June 16, 2022

by Carla Hay

Ethan Hawke and Mason Thames in “The Black Phone” (Photo by Fred Norris/Universal Pictures)

“The Black Phone”

Directed by Scott Derrickson

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in Denver in 1978, the horror film “The Black Phone” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with a few African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 13-year-boy, who gets kidnapped by a serial killer, is kept in the killer’s basement, where the boy gets phone calls from the ghosts of the other teenage boys who were murdered by the killer. 

Culture Audience: “The Black Phone” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Ethan Hawke and anyone looking for a tension-filled horror movie that isn’t a remake or a sequel.

Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw in “The Black Phone” (Photo by Fred Norris/Universal Pictures)

Creepy and suspenseful, the horror movie “The Black Phone” has the ghosts of murdered children as story catalysts, but the movie’s equally harrowing moments are in depicting realistic child abuse that can come from a stranger, a family member or a schoolmate. “The Black Phone” does everything a horror flick is supposed to do: keep audiences on edge, have well-acted memorable characters, and deliver plenty of moments that are genuinely terrifying.

Directed by Scott Derrickson, “The Black Phone” reunites Derrickson with several key players involved in the making of Derrickson’s 2012 sleeper hit horror film “Sinister,” including co-screenwriter C. Robert Cargill, producer Jason Blum and actors Ethan Hawke and James Ransone. Just like in “Sinister,” Hawke has the starring role, while Ransone has a pivotal supporting role in “The Black Phone.” Both movies are from Blumhouse Productions, the company owned by Blum, whose specialty is mainly horror. Both movies are effective horror films, but “Sinister” was a haunted house story based entirely on supernatural occurrences, while “The Black Phone” taps into the real-life horror of child kidnapping and murders with some supernatural elements as part of the story.

“Sinister” had an original screenplay by Derrickson and Cargill. The screenwriting duo adapted “The Black Phone” from a short story of the same title in author Joe Hill’s 2005 collection “20th Century Ghosts.” (Hill is the son of horror master Stephen King.) In the production notes for “The Black Phone,” Derrickson says many aspects of the movie (including the scenes of the movie’s protagonist being bullied at school) were directly inspired by his childhood growing up in Denver in the 1970s. “The Black Phone” takes place in Denver in 1978.

The movie opens with a seemingly idyllic scene of teenage boys playing a casual game of baseball. Two of the players in the game are 13-year-old Finney Blake (played by Mason Thames) and Bruce Yamada (played by Tristan Pravong), who are both classmates in the same school. (Some movie descriptions list Finney’s last name as Shaw, but his surname in the movie is definitely Blake.) After the game, Bruce is kidnapped by someone driving a mysterious black van.

Bruce’s abduction is the latest in a series of incidents in the northern Denver area, where other teenage boys have gone missing and are widely believed to be kidnapped. Bruce is the fourth boy to have disappeared. The other three missing kids are Griffin Stagg (played by Banks Repeta, also known as Michael Banks Repeta), the neighborhood paper boy Billy Showalter (played by Jacob Moran) and an angry troublemaker named Vance Hopper (played by Brady Hepner). The police who are investigating have very little information to go on, since most of the disappearances had no known witnesses. All of the boys are believed to be have been kidnapped while they were outside on the streets.

While people in the area are feeling that children are unsafe on the streets, Finney (who sometimes goes by the name Finn) and his 11-year-old sister Gwendolyn “Gwen” Blake (played by Madeleine McGraw) fear for their safety inside their own home. That’s because their widower father Terrence Blake (played by Jeremy Davies) is a violent alcoholic. Terrence is especially brutal to Gwen, because she has psychic abilities that he wants her to deny. Gwen’s psychic visions usually come to her in dreams.

Based on conversations in the movie, viewers find out that Gwen inherited these psychic abilities from her mother, who committed suicide. Terrence blames the suicide on these psychic abilities because the kids’ mother (who doesn’t have a name in the movie) claimed that she heard voices. Terrence says that these voices eventually told her to kill herself. The movie doesn’t go into details about when Terrence became an alcoholic, but it’s implied he’s been on a downward spiral since his wife’s suicide.

After Bruce disappears, somehow the police find out that Gwen told people about a dream she had that Bruce was abducted by a man driving a black van and carrying black balloons. Because two black balloons were found at the place where Bruce was last seen alive (the police did not make the black balloon information available to the public), investigators from the Denver Police Department—Detective Wright (played by E. Roger Mitchell) and Detective Miller (played by Troy Rudeseal)—interview Gwen at school and at her home. She is defiant and defensive over the cops’ suspicions that she knows more than she telling.

Gwen starts cursing at the cops and swears she has nothing to do with the disappearances of Brandon and the other missing boys. When Gwen is asked to explain how she knew about the black balloons, all Gwen will say is, “Sometimes my dreams are right.” Terrence is present during this interview. He’s nervous and apprehensive that the cops are in his home. He’s also angry that Gwen is being disrespectful to the cops.

After the police detectives leave, it leads to a heart-wrenching scene where a drunk Terrence viciously beats Gwen with a belt and demands that she repeat, “My dreams are just dreams.” Sensitive viewers, be warned: This is a hard scene to watch, and it might be triggering for people who’ve experienced this type of violence. During this beating, Finney just stands by helplessly and watches, but later in the movie, he expresses guilt and remorse about not stopping his father from assaulting Gwen. As abused children, Finney and Gwen often rely on each other for emotional support.

Finney is introverted and doesn’t have any close friends at school. However, things start looking up for him a little bit in his biology class when the students have to do dissections of frogs and are required to have a lab partner. No one wants to be Finney’s lab partner except a girl named Donna (played by Rebecca Clarke), who is a fairly new student. Donna indicates that she likes Finney and probably has been noticing him for a while. His bashful reaction shows that the attraction is mutual.

Finney experiences physical violence at school, where he is targeted by three bullies. One day, in the men’s restroom at school, these three bullies corner Finney and are about to assault him. However, a tough teenager named Robin Arreland (played by Miguel Cazarez Mora), who’s also a student at the school, intervenes and scares off the bullies because Robin is known to be a brutal fighter. Robin advises Finney to be better at standing up for himself.

Eventually, Robin and Finney get to know each other too. They don’t become best friends, but they become friendly acquaintances. This budding friendship is interrupted when Robin disappears, not long after Bruce has gone missing. The cops visit the Blake home again, but Gwen has nothing further to add, mainly because she terrified about divulging to the cops what she has dreamed.

It isn’t long before Finney is kidnapped too. This isn’t spoiler information, since it’s shown in the trailers for “The Black Phone.” His kidnapper is nicknamed The Grabber (played by Hawke), and he approaches Finney on a late afternoon when Finney is walking down a residential street by himself. The Grabber (who has long hair and is wearing white clown makeup, sunglasses and a top hat) is driving a black van with the logo of a company named Abracadabra Entertainment and Supplies.

When The Grabber sees Finney, he pretends to stumble out of the van and spill a bag of groceries. Finney offers to help him pick up the groceries. The Grabber tells the teen that he’s a part-time magician and asks Finney if he wants to see a magic trick.

Finney agrees somewhat apprehensively, and his nervousness grows when he notices that there are black balloons in the van. When Finney asks this stranger if he has black balloons in the van, the stranger kidnaps him. Finney has now become the sixth teenage boy to disappear in the same neighborhood.

Finney is kept in a dark and dingy house basement that has a mattress and a toilet. On the wall is a black phone that The Grabber says is disconnected. “It hasn’t worked since I was a kid,” The Grabber tells a terrified Finney.

The Grabber (who usually wears grinning clown masks that look similar to DC Comics’ The Joker character) tells Finney not to bother yelling for help, because the entire basement is soundproof. There’s only one door to and from the basement. It goes without saying that the door is locked from the outside. The Grabber also has a black pit bull as a guard dog.

“The Black Phone” has several scenes that show how The Grabber is a completely twisted creep. There’s a scene where Finney wakes up to find the masked Grabber staring at Finney because The Grabber says he just wanted to spend time looking at Finney. When Finney says he’s hungry and asks for food, The Grabber won’t feed him right away. There are other scenes where The Grabber uses intimidation and mind games to keep Finney under his control.

Even though The Grabber says that the black phone in the basement doesn’t work, shortly after Finney becomes imprisoned in the basement, the phone rings. The first time that Finney picks up the phone, he doesn’t hear anything. The next time the phone rings, he hears static and a voice of a boy who sounds far away. It’s the first indication that Finney has psychic abilities too.

It was already revealed in the trailers for “The Black Phone” that much of the movie is about Finney getting calls from the ghosts of the boys who were murdered by The Grabber. The only real spoiler information for “The Black Phone” would be the answers to these questions: “Does Finney escape? If so, how?” “Does Gwen use her psychic abilities to help find Finney?” “What will ultimately happen to The Grabber?”

Another character who is part of the story is a man in his early 40s named Max (played by Ransone), who gets on the radar of police because Max has become obsessed with the cases of the missing boys. Max is a cocaine-snorting loner who thinks of himself as an amateur detective. His home is filled with newspaper clippings and other items related to the investigations about the missing boys.

Even though a lot of information about the “The Black Phone” plot is already revealed in the movie’s trailers, there’s still much about the movie that’s worth seeing. (Audiences also got a early showings of “The Black Phone” when it screened at film festivals, including the 2021 edition of Fantastic Fest, where “The Black Phone” had its world premiere.) The scenes where Finney communicates with the dead boys are absolutely haunting and often mournful. These scenes include some flashbacks to the boys’ lives before they were kidnapped.

Vance’s flashback scene is artfully filmed as a 1970s hazy memory, as are many of the flashback scenes. Sweet’s 1974 hit “Fox on the Run” is used to great effect in this scene, which takes place in a Shop-N-Go convenience store where Vance is playing pinball. Gwen’s dream sequences were filmed using Super 8 film, which was the standard film type for home movies in the 1970s.

The production design, costume design, hairstyling, makeup and cinematography in “The Black Phone” all give the movie an authentic-looking recreation of the 1970s. The movie’s soundtrack includes some well-chosen songs, including the Edgar Winter Group’s 1972 hit “Free Ride,” which is played in the movie’s happy-go-lucky baseball game scene that opens the movie. (Coincidentally, “Free Ride” and “Fox on the Run” were also prominently featured in writer/director Richard Linklater’s 1993 classic comedy “Dazed and Confused,” which is an ode to 1970s teens.)

“The Black Phone” also has pop culture mentions to movies of the era. Finney and Robin talk about the 1974 horror movie “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” which Finney says his strict father would never allow him to see because he’s underage. Robin says he has an uncle who takes Robin to movie theaters to watch rated R movies. They also enthusiastically discuss the 1973 Bruce Lee action film “Enter the Dragon,” which is “The Black Phone” filmmakers’ nod to how popular Lee was with teenage boys in that era. Later, Finney is seen watching the 1959 horror movie “The Tingler” on TV one night, which is a scene inspired by director Derrickson doing the same thing when he was a child.

“The Black Phone” also accurately depicts the limited resources that people had if children went missing in 1978, long before the Internet and smartphones existed. It was also before missing kids’ photos were put on milk cartons, inspired by the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, who was kidnapped while walking by himself to school in New York City. It was also before the 1981 abduction and murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, who was taken from a shopping mall in Hollywood, Florida. As a result of this tragedy, Adam’s father John Walsh later founded the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The 1970s decade was also a prolific time for notorious serial killers, including Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, the Hillside Stranglers and the Son of Sam. According to the production notes for “The Black Phone,” The Grabber character was at least partially based on Gacy, who did part-time work as a party clown. Most of Gacy’s victims were teenage boys and young men whom he lured into his home by hiring them to do temporary housecare jobs. Gacy’s crimes had a sexual component that’s not included in “The Black Phone,” although there are hints that The Grabber could also be a child molester when it’s mentioned that The Grabber likes to play a game called Naughty Boy.

In his portrayal of The Grabber, Hawke gives a viscerally disturbing performance that will linger with viewers long after the movie ends. Thames makes an impressive feature-film debut as Finney, who goes through a wide range of emotions in the movie. McGraw is also a standout in her portrayal of feisty and sometimes foul-mouthed Gwen. “The Black Phone” has some comic relief in how Gwen is ambivalent about the Christianity that she has been taught. And although Robin’s screen time is brief, Mora is quite good in this portrayal of a character who makes an impact on Finney’s life.

Despite some predictable plot developments, “The Black Phone” is a better-than-average horror movie because it doesn’t forget that the story and characters should be more important than showing a lot of violence and gore. The movie does have violence and gore, but it’s not gratuitous. “The Black Phone” also makes a point of showing that abuse crimes don’t always come from strangers, but that abuse is often hiding in plain sight in schools and in families, where the abuse is committed by people who seem to be “upstanding citizens.” It’s this message that should resonate as a warning that a lot of horror in this movie continues to happen in real life.

Universal Pictures will release “The Black Phone” in U.S. cinemas on June 24, 2022.

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