The Black Phone

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When it came to the dialogue between Thame and Hawke, it was decent. All other characters, especially the brother Max, was given such jokes and lines to read that didn't progress the plot in my opinion. This movie felt like it wanted to be taken seriously but then we get the scene with him doing blow and the sister praying to Jesus but swearing at him so people in the theater could laugh. One ghost kid was really stupid. The one who was a psychopath. All other ghosts were helpful in some way but that kid literally gave no real good advice other than the meat cellar is behind a wall. Like sure, that comes back later, but it was given in such a comical way that any sort of tension they tried to build disappeared for me. Especially when he vanished, it was really stupid. Now, on the topic with the ghosts. They feel like they are just making up rules as they go along. Even so, some rules really do not matter. Like why does it matter they don't remember their names. Hell, the last kid seemed like he remembered who he was, why was he excluded from that rule? They leave this helpful stuff for the kid but they start off being cryptic then they give up and go, fuck it, this is what you need to do exactly. The kid that had the combination knew the Grabber was sleeping, but he didn't remember the code? Like he couldn't look at the wall the code was written on? It felt like a way to make sure the plot was moving forward for no other reason other than to move forward. There wasn't a great natural progression in this film[image]