“The Black Phone” is a taut and creepy thriller. Sometimes blurring the line between dreams and reality, it will keep you wondering what will come next. Set in the 1970’s, the film effectively uses the setting to create a believable scenario for its nightmare plot.

The movie begins in 1978 in North Denver at a what may be a Little League game. Pitcher Finney (Mason Thames) is on the mound throwing to Bruce (Tristan Pravong) in a climactic showdown. Later Bruce is on his bicycle when the film slows down to show a black van with the words “Abracadabra” on the side approaching. Soon Bruce has gone missing and is another victim of the “Grabber.”

Finney and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) are having breakfast with their father (Jeremy Davies) reading his newspaper. Finney gets reprimanded for making slurping sounds with his cereal. His sister makes a noise opening the breadbox and immediately apologizes. You can sense that they are in an abusive relationship with their parent with Mom nowhere to be seen.

As the siblings are walking to school, they hear the chants of “Fight, fight, fight.” Moose (J. Gaven Wilde) and Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora) are squaring off. Moose is the bigger person, but quickly gets bested. In a gruesome scene, Robin continually punches the prone Moose in the face.

At school, we see Finney being pursued by 3 bullies into a bathroom. As he is about to get beaten up, Robin shows up and pulls rank on the others. He tells them to leave Finney alone or they will have to answer to him. Unfortunately for Finney, Robin is later seen near the black van and disappears like Bruce.

Gwen gets called into the school office to meet with two police detectives. She shared a dream she had about Bruce with his sister. In it there were black balloons present. The police let her know that they have not made that information public and wonder how she knows.

At home Finney discovers Gwen being savagely beaten with a belt by his father. Dad is furious that the police have become involved because of her dreams. Apparently the children’s mother also dreamed in this way and it drove her to suicide.

One day Finney is walking along the street when he discovers the parked black van with a man in white clown make-up picking up items that have been dropped. The man asks if Finney would like to see a magic trick. Finney comments that there are black balloons inside the van. In a deft maneuver, the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) renders Finney unconscious.

When Finney awakens, he is in a room that is soon revealed to be a basement. There is one high window with a grating. A black dial phone is mounted on the wall.

The Grabber opens the door at the bottom of the staircase. He is wearing a creepy mask and tells Finney that he is not going to hurt him. He explains that the phone doesn’t work. Yet after he leaves, the phone rings. Soon Finney will be communicating with the other deceased victims of the Grabber as he fights to escape.

The story is a based on a short story by Joe Hill, forever to be known as Stephen King’s son. The screenwriters do an excellent job in keeping the film from becoming what could have been the pure exploitation of a minor being tortured or sexually abused.

Most of the violence occurs off-screen. As Finney talks to the previous victims on the black phone, they appear on-screen in their bloodied final state to the audience. The first time this happens is a wonderfully effective jump-scare. Only the fight between Robin and Moose and the climax feature overt violence.

Then there is the undertone of violence in the family situation of Finney and Gwen. It is clear that they have to walk on eggshells around their father as any “mistake” can set him off. The beating of Gwen with the belt walks the fine line in those days between acceptable corporal punishment and abuse.

The dream sequences are superbly filmed. They have just the right tone of murkiness and slow-motion sensibility.

But it is the masks that will receive much notice. They are strangely akin to the dramatic face-pieces used in classical Greek plays. When there are horns attached, the feeling is Satanic. One mask has teeth bared in a frightening grimace.

The period detail is incredible. The songs, such as Sweet’s “Fox on the run,” brilliantly complement the production design and costumes.

If you lived during this time, you forget how primitive it was in terms of information management. When someone went missing, there was no Internet, in particular social media, to share the facts of the case. No one carried a cellphone, so there was no quick way to call for help.

Some may be put off by Gwen’s appeals to Jesus in her bedroom as she seeks to find Finney via her dreams. But that is as far as the portrayal of Christianity goes in this story. Her dreams add a wonderful surreal quality to the film.

One of my pet peeves in older movies is a phone that rings multiple times while the slowpoke person goes to answer it. This happens here with the black phone and it made me cringe every time.

Not that you go to this kind of movie for the acting, but Ethan Hawke’s turn as the Grabber is not particularly noteworthy. Most of the time his face is shielded and he really is not in the picture very much.

This is instead very much a movie for the child actors. Adults are rarely seen and either seem menacing or ineffectual. Thames as Finney and McGraw as Gwen do a great job with their roles.

“The Black Phone” is not a film for younger children, who would have nightmares for weeks. I give the filmmakers credit for making this an “R”-rated film and not toning it down for a younger audience.

Four and a half out of five stars

The phone is dead. And it’s ringing.

Director Scott Derrickson returns to his terror roots and partners again with the foremost brand in the genre, Blumhouse, with a new horror thriller. Finney Shaw, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer’s previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney.

Cast: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone and Ethan Hawke
Directed by: Scott Derrickson
Screenplay by: Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill
Based on the short story by Joe Hill
Genre: Horror