There is a shocking degree of savagery taking place in The Black Phone, which the film's creator treated with the utmost dignity and understanding. No, it's not the violence that a serial killer directs towards his victims, but the violence that teenagers experienced on a daily basis in the 1970s US. It was not heroic or poignant, nor was it sensible and something that helped their coming-of-age process. It was just bloody and senseless, as they fought each other and their parents simply beat them.
Here is where the key center of mass of The Black Phone lies. It is a tale of bullying and suffering but told through a lens of a spectacular serial killer tale. It has ghosts and it has a protagonist that refuses to quit, but it's about a generation that took its beatings in silence and helplessness. It is about the same generation, now in its middle age phase, that will soon run the world and the pains that they undoubtedly still carry inside of them. That makes The Black Phone a rare and very touching piece of cinema, even though it is very hard to watch.
