Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone deals with tough subject matter: A sadistic child killer named the Grabber, played by Ethan Hawke, abducts children, never to be seen again. When he takes his sixth victim, the young boy gets mysterious phone calls from a disconnected phone in the Grabber’s dungeon from the children that have come before.
The Universal and Blumhouse film, in theaters now, is based on a short story of the same name by Joe Hill, Stephen King’s son. “It combined a serial killer story with a ghost story in a single location, which I had never seen before,” Derrickson tells The Hollywood Reporter, remembering the time he picked up the short story in a book store in Los Angeles.
When did you discover the short story, and what made you want to adapt it?
I discovered the short story the month that was published [in 2007 in the United States]. I had lunch in Los Angeles and walked up to the Skylight bookstore and went into their horror section. There were like five or six books that were there, and 20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill’s anthology book, was there. I stood there, and I read the first story, which I thought was incredible, called “Best New Horror,” and which I’ve now optioned and have another writer working on. Then I bought the book, took it home, and I read the rest of them and “Black Phone” really jumped out to me as a movie. It was always in the back of my mind. I think I revisited it and I may have even optioned it like five or 10 years ago, thinking I would try to adapt it. I had a feeling like, I’m going to get to that, I’m going to try to do that thing, and then after stepping off of the sequel to Doctor Strange, it just seemed like the right time.
Did you have any trepidation given the subject matter?
No, and it’s because of Joe’s short story. It was taking the most grim subject matter imaginable — a sadistic child killer, and its story about the abduction of his sixth victim or whatever it was, and yet the story did two things. It combined a serial killer story with a ghost story in a single location, which I had never seen before. That was very original. But Joe really writes from the point of view of love. He really writes with great empathy for the characters. He’s not a cynical or mean spirited horror writer. A lot of horror writers are, and Joe’s quite the opposite. So, the grimness of the subject matter, I thought even in the short story, was matched by the empathy and love behind the point of view of the writer.