‘The Black Phone’ explained: Who is the “Grabber”?
Scott Derrickson’s 2021 abduction horror movie The Black Phone wipes the nostalgic sheen off any kitsch infatuation we might have with rotary dial telephones. The film marks Derrickson’s second collaboration with Ethan Hawke, following the 2012 cult classic Sinister.
If the latter movie is officially the scariest ever released on Netflix according to science, then The Black Phone can’t be far behind. This chilling tale involves an abusive parent, a young teenager trapped in a basement and a landline somehow connected to the dead. Oh, and Hawke as the most terrifying child killer since Freddy Krueger. Thankfully, the Grabber’s crimes aren’t inspired by any kind of true story, unlike Krueger’s.
Middle school student Finney is already terrorised by his father and badly bullied at school. So being abducted and imprisoned in a soundproof room underground is the last thing he needs. He soon learns that the culprit is a masked child abductor on the loose in North Denver called that the papers have dubbed “the Grabber” because of the way he grabs children off the street.
The Grabber met Finney on his way home posing as a magician, before ambushing him with a bunch of black balloons and sedating him with helium so he didn’t scream. He’d already got to Finney’s friend Robin before him. During Finney’s imprisonment, Robin and others who speak to Finney from beyond the grave through the titular phone in the Grabber’s basement, giving him advice on how to overcome the villain and escape with his life.
Where is the Grabber’s basement?
We see clearly from the moment Finney comes across the Grabber that he’s a different person from the other characters in the movie. We first see him in the flesh without a mask, played by Hawke with a strange mixture of the unthinking brutality typical of many masked killers from the horror genre and Buffalo Bill’s twisted compulsion to toy with his victims in The Silence of the Lambs.
But we’re also led to believe that Finney’s violent father Terrence may be in on the Grabber’s crimes, particularly after he mercilessly beats Finney’s sister Gwen for daring to tell the authorities about her dreams of the Grabber. His habit of abusing his own children proves to be a red herring, though, diverting us from the real accessory to the Grabber’s crimes.
A powder-snorting deadbeat named Max who poses as an amateur crime enthusiast following the case closely and offering his help to the police. In fact, he’s the brother of the serial killer abducting the kids.
Gwen dreams of the house Max and the Grabber in a vision, finally leading the police to the location of the crimes. But not before Finney’s taken care of the Grabber himself. Hero.