In this episode, we dive into The Black Phone and break down everything from the Grabber’s mask, the film’s supernatural logic, Finney’s arc, unanswered story threads, and why so much feels intentionally vague. We explore whether the film was built for a sequel and what worked—and didn’t—in its tight runtime.
In this episode, we take a deep dive into The Black Phone and unpack the film’s blend of real-world horror and supernatural mystery. We explore how Derrickson uses 1970s true-crime anxieties, child abductions, and local paranoia to ground the story’s paranormal elements, while also asking whether the film fully commits to either side of its identity. We break down Ethan Hawke’s chilling performance as The Grabber and discuss why his motives, rituals, and connection to the black phone itself remain so ambiguous. We question whether the movie intentionally leaves major narrative gaps in hopes of expanding into a franchise—especially since many elements feel like setup for a larger mythology that didn’t materialize until years later when the sequel finally arrived. We also get into the design of The Grabber’s masks, the concept of “naughty boy,” and Finney’s mysterious ability to hear the phone. Does it imply something supernatural about him? Was he always meant to be the final victim? And does the film subtly tease the Grabber’s transformation into a more mythic, Freddy-Krueger-like entity? These theories are all on the table, and we compare them to what the film actually provides onscreen. Finally, we discuss how the movie uses its short runtime—whether it’s lean and effective, or whether it sacrifices crucial character depth and world-building. With so many ideas introduced but not fully explored, we talk about what The Black Phone 2 might clarify, expand, or even retcon after the first film’s unresolved threads. We examine the film’s themes, unanswered questions, and what truly makes it resonate with viewers, even when parts of the story feel underdeveloped. If you’ve ever wondered what The Grabber actually wants—or what the franchise could become—you’re in the right place.
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Welcome to the Never Seen It Podcast, the only podcast called Never
Seen It That's worth listening to and with us tonight.
As always, Mr. Arnie, the one-man Party,
aka.A. Arld Kalego's here with us tonight, folks.
Mr. Daily Dares, aka.
Filipino Grigio, aka Alex Calo, the Brothers Calo.
And then there's me, Boots Too Big, aka.
Adrian De, and he's back.
Lies and gentlemen, the productigal son, he's back.
It's been a while, but Mr. Anthony Gerardi, aka.
Toner joins us again tonight, former co-host and founder of
the Never Seen Podcast is with us again for one night only.
Good to be back.
Good to be back.
Good Good to have you back, Anthony.
It's been a while.
It's been a..
You still watch movies.
He didn't stop because of us.
Yeah, I mean, most of the time these days, it's, you know, kids' animated movies,
but every now and then I'll sneak in a little R rated horror K-pop Demon Hunters?
That was great.
I loved K-pop Demon Hunters.
Those songs are still stuck in my head.
Nice.
I still got to see that.
I haven't seen it, but
I've heard heard some things.
It's hot.
It's a real hot movie.
It is.
But the other hot movie that we're talking about tonight is the 2021
horror film directed by Scott Derrickson, The Black Phone.
Blake, a shy but clever 13 year old boy is abducted by a sadistic killer
entrapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is when
a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finnny 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 him.
Starring, of course, Mr. Ethan Hawk.
Love Ethan Hawk.
Hawke not like Ethan Hawk.
And yeah, that's Blackf.
This was chosen by Anthony.
So, Anthony, tell us, why did you choose Blackf?
What was your perception of this movie before you chose it?
So I had never seen this.
It had been
probably quite a while since I watched anything really horror.
And so the second one is had recently come
out, and so I had seen a lot of promotional material for it again.
And this popped up in the streaming platforms.
And I was like, oh, let's let's give it a watch.
Like you said, Ethan Hawk is, you know, kind of a
tried and true masterclass actor.
And so I was like, let's let's see.
I want to see him play the villain and see see what comes of this.
Had really no idea what it was other than that
creepy mask that's in like all the photos that you see
That's kind of all I knew.
I thought it was maybe some like ghosty type
of horror, which it did end up becoming, but was not expecting
the whole child abduction plot.
That was a bit of surprise going into it.
Right.
And yeah, like you said, Ethan Hawk is great.
Did you guys ever see the Bef before Sunsetter Bef Midnight movies?
Did you guys ever once?
never saw that series.
No.
It's so good.
It's a Quickside digit.
It's like a romance, but like not.
I don't know how to explain it.
It's But it takes place over 30 years, right?
Like they have three different movies.
Three, yeah, well, yeah, I guess there's three.
So the first two are like about them kind of
courting, but the third one is actually them in like
Marriage.
I haven't seen the third one yet, but I haven't seen through one either.
It's like they're like they're married and they're just kind of like, umgusting charm.
I mean, it's, I kind of, I kind of get
why they do it, you know, because like 30 years of like, if you're going to do a third installment
why, like, why continue doing this whole like
back and forth of like forlorn romance,
you know, that's just like, yeah, come on, something has to come of it.
That's a good point.
Because the first two, they're very talky movies, but they're good.
Like, I was like, wow, like, it's just them talking.
Like
There's no crazy set pieces.
There's no, like, big visuals.
It's literally them walking around Paris.
I and shit, just talking.
That's Richard Linklater..
Oh, is it?
Oh, well, that makes sense.
That makes..
But you know, what's not a talking movie, The Black Phone.
Although I guess it kind of, but not really...
There's some talking, especially over the phone.
But yeah, I actually watched this back in 2022
and then I re-watched it today just to have a refresher.
And
yeah, I wrote a review on it, which we'll get into later.
But, um, yeah, uh, Anthony, tell us just initial thoughts.
Like, what are your sort of, uh, uh, sort of rapid fire thoughts after having watched it?
So I remember you had said something along the
lines of like, you hated it the first time you saw it.
And so that was the only thing I knew going into it, which I was like, cool, it's probably a great movie.
But, no, going into it, like like I said, knew very
little, knew about the creepy mask, and that was it.
And so it had a lot of
different layers to it, which I thought were interesting.
Like I said, there was like the
you know, the 70s nostalgia piece of it.
and then there was the, like the kidnapping type of scariness.
And then there was the dead kids talking on the phone.
And then there was like the sister who was praying to Jesus,
but like getting like visions and stuff.
So there was a lot of depth that I don't feel like got fully explained.
So now I kind of want to watch a second one to see if they go into it more.
because I feel like there was a lot of seeds planted
that never fully, you know, cultivated.
I can see that.
Now let me ask you this, and we'll go around the room with this question as well.
A lot of people sort of defend Ethan Hawke's character by saying that he's not
a pedophile, which I might have to bleep out. because of the way the internet is now.
And I'll start with you three.
What do you?
He didn't go to Epstein Island.
Exactly.
Is he pedo-codated or is he just a guy that kidnaps and kills kids?
I mean, you, what was your interpretation?
I mean, I don't, it never showed him doing anything.alual to him.
Or, yeah, it was he just like abused kids, right?
Like, and murdered them.
Right.
So, yeah, I mean, I didn't really get any
like weird sexual pedo vibes from him.
I just got like, this is a crazy dude that wants to abduct and hurt kids.
And I, you know, it was
that weird allusion too, of like, he wants to, like he wants you
to play his game and you're going to be like, like, what they call it?
The game?
It was like bad kids or Naughty Boy.
Naughty Boy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so it's like, it almost makes you think like maybe he was abused
as a kid by his dad or something and then he was kind of reliving that.
Like, but yeah, it felt more like a physical
abuse thing and like an overpowering dynamic than it did anything sexual.
That's a good point.
There's lots of violence.
Well, abuse specifically.
At every level, there's abuse at school from his classmates for Finn.
There's abuse at home by his father who they
show, you know, spanking his son sister for
the cops talking to her about, you know, stuff that happens.
And then there's obviously abuse by the grabber.
The.
Which I kind of love that name.
The grabber..
But yeah, lots of themes of abuse here, which is the hardest
thing for me to watch was the sister getting abused.
Like that was like Oh, yes.
Yeah.
For real.
And that's like the most grounded abuse in the in the damn thing.
And that's what, you know, the hardest to watch.
The bottle vodka.
Yeah.
Oh.
Because he's an alcohol.
By the way, the dad, I didn't realize this.
The dad is played by the same guy that played upham and sav him Private Ryan.
It took me a while to like, I was like, why does he look so familiar?
And then I went on Letterbox and Jeremy Davies is his name.
Private Ryan catch that
A movie that I love, by the way.
I've said this many times.
It's like the first time, Ryan.
Like the fourth time in a row that you mentioned it.
It's because people on the internet seem to think that when you say
something critical of something, it means, oh, you must hate it.
No, I'm not criticizing it as a movie.
I was criticizing his character
in a movie that I love very much.
But we won't get into all that.
We't get into all that..
You're talking about the negative things about saving Private Ryan?
And Tom Hanks, specifically.
America's sweetheart, Tom Hanks.
Exactly.
The Jenny Stewart of the 21st century.
He was also
criticizing shaving Raven's privates to.
Oh, yeah..
The classic retelling.
The Gooners don't like when you criticize a adult classic.
But Alex, tell me, what do you think?
Did you get a pedophile vibes from this character, the grabber, or what?
What do you think about that whole thing?
I didn't honestly get that.
I just, I just, I actually honestly didn't really understand his motivation in general.
You know It kind of..
I was kind of getting this sense that it was they
were trying to play this sort of supernatural, supernatural
sort of influence type of deal.
Like the black phone was something evil that was influencing
because like, he'd always say that phone doesn't work.
That phone doesn't work.
But it obviously
does in a sense, for Finney.
And so it was always this thing that like he
would it seemed like he was trying to convince himself
in a way that it didn't work, you know,
you know, and in a sense to like almost kind of gaslight
the kids into thinking like thinking that it wasn't working, but like
that like maybe it was all in their head that the phone was.
So like maybe to distrust what was going on with that phone, right?
That's interesting so it it almost sounds like you're saying it was like a
coping mechanism for him for the grabber as well. in a way.
No, no, no, no.
No, no.
It was like that phone.
He knew the phone worked.
Oh.
Right?
But like, he's trying to convince him the kids that it didn't.
Like, trying to make them feel crazy for hearing
the phone ringing and everything like that. think it other kids heard the phone too, or was it just Phny?
I's.
I't they heard the phone.
I think they're they all heard the phone.
because I'm getting the sense
that maybe the second one, which I haven't seen yet,
is they're going to go more into the Supernatural sense of what
that whole black phone is.
Because that's the name of the movie, right?
Come on.
Yeah.
There has to be something around revolving around it, right?
I just hope they don't overexplain it.
And we have another sort of Milorians thing on our hands where they
have to explain everything about the lore, and then it's like, okay, now there's no more mystery to it.
But yeah, I am curious to know more about
how that phone functions, I guess, in this universe and
how the spirits of this previous victims like still like are able to communicate through that phone.
But uh
I just hope they don't overdo it.
Like, let's just like, you know, keep it, you know, a little ambiguous.
I wonder if there's next movie.
Oh, a bigger legacy to that, even before the grabber, you know?
Yeah..
Well, yeah.
I mean, did they ever explain how, I don't recall insane
or explaining or alluding to how that phone got in there to begin with.
It's just there, right?
Well, he kind of did mention that, like, oh, that
phone's always been there since I was a kid.
hasn't worked through years..
Arnold, tell me, you'd watched this today as well?
Yeah, before you, not when you don't have to say the P word again.
A PDF file.
Just say it like the way a Filipino would say it.
A fetepile.
Okay, Fedophile.
You know, because we always confuse the
P's and the F. Oh, I like that File.
File.
You know.
But Filipinos will understand.
is talking about the Fed de.
You' blackphoned in It's blacklisted.
The Disney vacation and the internet is very much real,
and PDF file is the code, you know,
FD up.
FD up, yeah.
It's a PNG.
It's an NPG file, actually.
Oh, PNG, yeah.
PNG.
What are your initial thoughts, Arnold, now that you?
Because you watched this today as well as I did, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So other than
you know, him only grabbing,
or, you know, capturing, capturing Boys, young boys.
I think the oldest was that one
that was playing pinball.
He seemed to be like 18 or something.
It was a girl, though.
There was was a girl, though.
Was there Was it?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, there was a girl.
It wasn't Oh, yeah.
Like that he on the.
I remember that.
I think it was like the second or the third one that he was talking to on the phone.
Remember I was like kind of upside down, like a lady?
Oh, yeah..
That was a girl.
That was a girl.
Oh.
I was pretty sure.
I did not catch that. my second rewatch.
No, I thought I didn't remember it was.
Her like throat was slit, I think.
Oh, yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I'm glad that you asked me last because
as you were going around around the table,
it made me think of a lot of different things.
Like, oh, wow, I didn't think of that.
It just, I didn't think of or realized any more motivation
A lot of times even when you would see that happen
in real life, like on the news.
And it's like, you don't really know what their motivation is.
And you just like someone who goes on a spree of that,
you just know, okay, the targets have been
a certain demographic, so you guys got got to watch out for this.
It was, that was. question young kids.
Sorry, the upside down one was Griffin.
They were all boys.
Oh, it was?
Oh, they were?
Okay.
Yeah.
Oh, maybe just just a young boy that sounded like a girl.
Yeah.
I mean, that that one character
did have a high pitched voice, so I thought it was
made that they were a girl, so Yeah, I could see that.
Here's one thing I was thinking, because like, I mean, here's one interpretationation.
What if it was like, you know, a lot of things like that are
very traumatic and then I don't know how much you guys watch like
ghost adventures and stuff like that where like in a lot of
when things like that tend to happen, like, say
even like during the civil War, you know, you'll hear people
who live in those areas where they're like, yeah,
or like where there was slavery, just like really traumatic
areas and places where things that very traumatic happen.
There'll be like hauntings at night that sound like
when they do like investigations and stuff like that that point
to people from that time.
But what if like, you know, the those kids
with the help of the sister who has
that sort of special talent to be able
to via dreams or prayers and
visions connect with them.
I don't know.
Is there any, is this totally made up
or inspired by?
The paper boy that talks to him is based
on a real life kid who had a paper route and was kidnapped and never found.
Oh, so that aspect of it is based on reality.
And then also the grabber himself, I believe, is based on
oh, who was it?
Some famous serial killer from that era.
It wasn't Gacy.
It was somebody else.
But, yeah, there's like, they sprinkled in a little bit of,
you know, based on reality stuff.
But other than that, it's wholly original.
And by the way, uh,
going back to the whole, uh, what is it, Arnold?
FP file?
Fedile?
Fedepile?
The writer himself, C.
Robert Cargill, said that, yeah, he actually is that,
but we don't explicitly show it or say it in the movie,
but, you know, it's one of those things where like, just because the author or the writer says it,
oh, well, actually, not really, or yes, you can still like make your own interpretation of it.
So I thought it was worthy of discussing regardless of what
what the writer said.
But yeah, there's some real life stuff that they put in this movie.
But obviously, you know, the paranormal stuff, I mean, that's a whole nother.
Arnold, I forget, did you say you believe in ghosts?
I can't remember.
You do believe in ghosts, right?
I believe that, yeah, stuff has happened to me that I've
witnessed different things, different places and that I can't
describe.
Even currently where I work.
I think we mentioned this on a couple of podcasts ago.
Oh, yes, yeah.
In our office.
Your office.
We're right next door to the burial ground, the Indian burial ground, and then
A little bit of horror going on there?
People always say there're near a burial ground or they're on top of a burial.
How do people, like, do they go on a GIS survey or something?
Like, do they pull that from public records?
And it says, oh, yeah, this used to be a..
Oh, no, no.
No, like, from our balcony., it's literally the Indian burial build..
I don't know that tribal..
Yeah, yeah, tribal land.
Oh, that is interesting.
Yeah, I don't know. kind of.
What did you guys think about?
I wanted to see more of him before he got snatched, which was Robin.
I was like, I like that character.
Yeah.
But he's a fighter, but you know who else is a fighter, obviously. surprised was Gwen, the sister.
Sister, yeah.
Gosh, dang.
She does not, she is not afraid to get down.
She clocked that kid with a rock and there's blood.
And I'm like, he needs a doctor. like now
And her mouth was all bloody too.
She was like, in the mouth and just like spinning up blood.
I wasn't alive in the 70s, but the whole time I'm like, the 70s were violet.
It was all that leaded gasololine.
I was going to say, yeah.
I wrote in my notes like the dad spanking and being ab done
What was he saying?
Like, you going to slip that soup ladder or something?
And I think he was hungover.
Like, because there was a lot of like, you know, bottles.
Yeah, well and just like allusions to alcoholism in general, right?
And like, that's why she dropped the vodka bottle, which set them off.
But yeah, like, there was a lot of alcoholism in that household.
Yeah, and
parents back then, I feel like they were a different breed in general.
Like, I don't know, kids too.
I think, I think people used to be tougher in a way, you know?
And even.
Well, like in our age group, you know, we used to be able to go outside by ourselves for hours on end.
Go ahead, Alex.
Well, if you think about it, like, remember when they like it would be like that Friday night,
every time after school of the city were like, oh, I'm going to go around my friend's house and stay over.
And like, okay, it was like nothing, you know, to go stay at somebody's house.
Whereas like, you would have to like, in order to these days,
in order to stay at some of these house, the kids kids would have to meet the parents
would have to meet and make sure everything's cool and like, you know what I mean?
It's almost formal thing these days, which I get.
You know, people want to do their due diligence, but at the same time, it's,
back then, I remember, like, I mean, it wasn't common for
us, but we'd have people like we'd have friends, come stay over
at our house, but it was never, it was kind of rare that we would,
the only place we'd ever stay at is like grandmother's house and like same.
All our cousins would stay over there and like hang out and
like watch movies and watch wrestling and
that there you go.
The other thing that speaking of like just Stranger
Danger in general, because that's kind of how the grabber gets around.
He has a black van called up with a label that says Abrabra and he's a magician, apparently.
They didn't want to make him a clown because that's too close to it.
I read, I was reading about this.
So they're like, let's make him a magician.
That makes more sense.
So what was funny to me was that the cops rely on
talking to Gwen as their main lead for these happenings.
But like, no one's noticing this ominous black van driving around town.
Like, I don't know.
What did you guys think of about that?
Because I thought it was kind of funny They' like, let's go talk to the
12-year old and not just like, I don't know, talk to other witnesses.
Like, have you seen anything suspicious in your neighborhood or whatever?
Well, and the fact that they like, they talked to the brother, right?
Like across the street from the house or like in the same house where this kid was.
And he's got like, it's this new guy in town.
He's like tracking all of this stuff.
He's doing coaine in the living room.
The cops are just like, all right, buddy, you're crazy.
We'll see you later.
It's like, I may investigate this guy a little bit more.
If you took out the brothers subplot, it would change It wouldn't have been any different.
It would have changed nothing.
Yeah.
So there was another weird layer to this where I'm
like, they crammed a lot of things in this that I don't feel all needed to be in the same movie.
Right.
Yeah.
But I mean, if you think about it, like how we talked about in weapons,
the misdirection, it seemed like the only point of putting
that in was to try to misdirect you
in a certain a certain thing, but it was
kind of like shoehorned in shoehorned in this direction.
Like it didn't make sense.
Even like in weapons, a lot of that stuff kind of like, oh, okay.
Yeah, maybe.
See, if I put my rider hat on for just a second,
what I would have done is I would have had the brother.
If you're going to have the brother, do it like this, don't tell us or hint that he's the brother.
He's just another neighbor.
And then reveal that at the last possible second.
Fitty goes to his house or something and is like, help me, help me..
Exactly.
And, and then then you'd have a great payoff.
But they didn't do that.
They told us kind of early on
because what did he say?
It was the brother, Max, was the character's name.
He's like, oh, yeah, my brother is out working.
And I think at that point we already knew that, oh, the, his brother is the grabber.
He just doesn't know it or whatever.
I don't think we knew.
Yeah, we didn't know it yet.
But like, like not long after.
But it was kind of obvious.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wasn't it?
There was one point where like, oh
that.
It's very soon after that they're like, they kind of feed it to you.
They're like, oh, no, like this is the same house.
And you're just like, oh, I thought, I thought that it was all
the same house, but I didn't realize that they were across the street from each other because it kind of looked similar.
Yeah, they're like identical floor plans across the street from one another.
Yeah, yeah.
Denver, like most houses look like that.
Like when the cops were going through the house, I was like,,
oh, uh, did they did they miss that the kitchen with the door?
Yeah.
And then I was like, oh, I thought they were going to do like a Silent
Hill time shifty thing like once they start going to the house and
like everything's missing and I'm like, oh, are they too late?
Like, is this going to do some weird time shift and now Finn's dead too?
And like we're hearing it actually like he's talking to somebody else now
and they didn't do that.
I just kind of felt like a lot of like plot points were
like kind of too convenient, you know?
Yes.
Like that When you get to the end, it's like, oh, there's two different.
Like, what?
How would we even know?
Like, that's that.
Okay.
apparently I just wasn't.
In the 70s on a magician's salary, you could afford two houses.
That's all cheap to cost living ones.
Two hous
like that.
I was going to say, if you guys ever saw Science of the Lambs,
remember when the cops go to the wrong house while Sterling is
already in the actual house with Buffalo Bill?
Remember that?
So they were trying to do a switcheroo type of thing with that,
but the payoff wasn't as good as Science LM's.
But that's interesting, you would say science Silent Hill because, yeah, there's
no he does borrow a lot from other horror movies, but it doesn't make it its own.
I don't know.
It doesn't work in.
I'm also saying that the script was written in six days, so What, really??
That's what it.
That's crazy.
What?
Oh, no, six weeks.
Sorry, I can't read.
Oh, okay.
Six weeks.
Six weeks.
Oh.
Well, you know, the funny thing about, like Blumhouse films,
they always have this sort of cheap thrown together feeling
Yeah.
You know, like, I read, I saw something
somewhere, like early early days of Blumhouse films.
What they did was their whole strategy was
to make at as many cheaply made films as possible
and that that put
them out there and somewhere along the line, one
of them should make a lot of of money and it would kind
of like be able to float everything else and hopefully make them money.
And like that seems like that seems to work.
But you can always tell though, like
the sets are always these like, isolated
things, like, like the the basement.
There're like there's there's sparsely casted,
you know, even like when they send all this.
You know?
Next time you're watching any movie or show, this isn't aide, but it's funny.
Look at how the main cast will interact
with people around them, and and the people around them never readily ever
talk because when they have speaking lens, you have to pay them more
So like a lot of times, like extros.
Exactly.
They don't Exactly.
Like, once you notice that, you'll never unnotice it.
Yeah.
Like, It's hilarious.
So like, but to, like the studio, Blumhouse's credit,
like there are some really good movies that like they've done Get Out,
they did the Insidious movies split.
So like, there are some quality horror movies there.
I just
feel like this one is.
But if you look at like, even like Get Out, even Get Out, though,
like, look how sparsely casted it was.
And look how like the sets were just very isolated.
It wasn't like, but, you know, it all depends on the director.
Like, he, like, what's his name?
The Jordan.
Yeah, Jordan Peele.
For Get out, yeah.
He knew he knew how to get the most
out of that budget, to make it look biggerger.
Whereas the director for this, it didn't feel
like I felt it could have felt bigger, but it didn't, you know?
I agree.
I don't know what the budget was on this.
I know that they shot it.
So they wrote it in six weeks apparently.
And I think I read that they shot it in like 33 days or something.
Yeah, they did.
Ethan Hawg didn't want to be in it
at first.
He didn't even want to be in the movie.
Apparently, the directory he was busy.
He was busy.
Woking up for Moon Knight.
Yeah, exactly.
He was yoked in this, I will say.
There was that scene where like it shows him in the living or in
the kitchen, like like ready to beat the kid if he comes up with a belt. and he's like shirtless.
And like, he looked like Christian Bale's Batman.
Like it was it was impressive.
It's funny say that.
All right.
I was I was actually in the dad bod.
I'd wrote Ethan the Hawk fit dad bod when I wrote.
I don't know.
I was actually looking it up and like Moon Knight was released after Blackphone.
A Black phone was in 2021 and Moon Knight was 202 202
So it kind of tracks, like you're saying, Anthony, it's getting Jack getting jacked.
So he's probably bulking up for Moon Knight.
That makes sense?
I didn't watch Moon Kn.
I didn't know Ethan Hunkk was in Moon Kn. thought that was Oscar.
Yeah, he was a bad guy.
He was the main bad guy.
Oh, so he didn't want to be the bad guy in this.
He was afraid about being a bad guy in this, but..
I guess he also did the North
man right after this.
I don't know if he was in that either..
I watched.
Yeah, I watched a preview of that.
That was actually pretty good.
That's the one by Taylor Joy.
Yeah.
Robert Eggers, I believe.
Skarsgard.
Yeah.
The Skarsr.
What does he have, like 10 sons that are all actors?
Yeah.
Estella Stellan Skarsgr Is it Stellan?
Yeah.
I was still Brian?
Yes.
Yes, Stan Barath..
He's the elk god.
No, I was just watching, did you guys see watch Infinity Pool?
Is that in a mix of Infinity Wars and Deadpool?
I wish it was, because so far it's very weird, and I don't know.
Phom Moon is having.hern California to clean pools.
Exactly.
He's Sideb.
He snaps and he becomes a pool guy.
It's a one-in episode.
Yeah.
The son of David Cronenberg, Brandon Kronenberg, directed that.
Mia Goth is in it.
That was my draw.
Remember I see Mia Gotha, I'm like, she's going to be, even though the movie's bad, she's going to be worth it.
So I got to finish one. it.
And I think the first scene that the
grabber was talking to Finnny.
Did anybody think like, like I knew going into
it, like like I heard when I told people, oh, I'm going to watch what we're going to do Black phone.
They're like, oh, yeah, Ethan Hawk was great in this.
I think Ethan even mentioned that too.
Yeah.
But then when in that first team when he's talking to Finney, for some reason, he
I couldn't help but think of like Joaquin Phoenix.
It made the of that Joaquin Phoenix.
I don't know.
Is the Joker?
From like his voice or or what?
I don't know.
You know, I thought the actor that played Finnitting kind of looks like a little Ethan Hawk.
Am I crazy?
I thought this kid kind of looks like him.
Actually, to me, he looked like that guy from Salicia Shorts.
Do you remember
that guy?
Which one?
There's in that show.
He wasn't the redhead kid.
He was like the newer kid that gets added on Salucha shorts.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he's also the guitar player.
Yeah.
He's like the guitar player for that band Ro Kie.
This is what I love about the show.
We'll have all the deep cut references from the 90s and 80s, man.
Because that's I haven't thought about that show Alex in years.
I love that show as a kid..
I did too.
And also, I'm not sure if you know also about the
show that we're also very into our taking care of our health.
And you know, as a society, we sit for so long.
and so every 30 minutes, it's very important to at least stand up.
This is the kind of stretch that you've been missing on.
This is why.
Get an arty stretch.
Yeah.
Everybody's got to do it with me.
It's.
It's Saturday night.
You're.
I'm good, actually, Arnold I. I was on my feet watching.
I'm stretching below the waist, Arnold.
That's great.
I'll see.
I did a lot of stretching.
The kid that played Finney was also in
the recent How to Tain Your Dragon live action.
He played hiccup.
Oh, I didn't see that either.
That was good..
They did a good job on that one.
I heard the people who, I
know that follow that, they were like, ah, they like the original.
Well, is that a Disney?
It's a true adaptation.
Is it a Disney property?
Dreamworks No, it's Dreamworks.
Are they doing that now?
Are they're like, let's make a live action version of all of our animated.
It's all a cog
I saw the t- for the Moana live action, and it's like, it still looks CGI.
And the Rock is still going to be in it.
The Rock is still just The Rock and the girl.
Okay, whatever.
Anyway, They're doing a live action.
Moana.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The teaser.
Uh-huh.
I mean, I'm I'm still going to watch it because my kid loves,
we both love the original..
Yeah.
Because it's been so long since the original that they had to breathe new life into it. years.
Where D. Hey, I guess if it's pre-pandemic at this point, it's like, yeah.
It's like SpC before COVID.
I would like to see a live-action to animated version of something.
Oh, yeah.
Oh.
I don't know what I'd want to see, but.
Well, that's kind of like what the Anatrix did, right?
They like it was The Matrix and that one animated it.
That's true.
That's true.
I want to see a remake of a popular movie
but where everybody's a Muppet except for one person and they just don't call attention to it.
That's what I like.
Imagine like the Godfather where everybody'sers.
They did that on Comm. Did they really?
They didn't episode the episode of Community, where it's like Everybody O Muppets.
Stall Muppets.
This could work as a Muppet.
Can you imagine like
the Ethan Hawke character as a Muppet?
I think that could work.
Muppet horror movie would be kind of great, actually.
It's like a red Fuzz coming
out. shy away from the gore.
Just give a kid with their phone and they could with all their toys, they could do that.
Yeah.
What did you guys think of the masks?
Because like that felt like another layer that wasn't fully
explored and I was getting like split vibes where I'm like, okay,
like is each mask a different personality that this guy has, different character.
Again, something not really fledged out.
But like there was the sad mask.
There was the like the devil horn's mask.
He had like
half, like bottom top, like both.
And I want to believe there was something plot related
there and it wasn't just a marketing ploy of like, oh, the mask will be good on posters, you know?
Yeah, Top Savini is a legendary makeup and special effects artist.
He made the masks for this movie.
He intentionally made them to look mythic, theatrical.
An artypal.
Archetypal, is that how you say it?
Pulling from classic devils in silent arror Horror..
So, yeah, so that's a nice behind the scenes trivia as far as like the lore within the world of the movie.
I don't know.
I didn't think about that.
Yeah, why did he have the masks?
I mean,
there was one scene where he had the bottom
half, but you could really see his eyes.
Yeah..
And that was, I can't remember what scene that was,
but I felt like he was sort of having a relatively heart-felt
discussion with Finn, you know, all things considered.
And then like there was the one where you only see the bottom half of his mouth, I feel like it was more sister.
Yeah, there's like three different, I'm looking at the, it's one top with
the devil horns, and then there's a sad face bottom, a
no mouth bottom, and a smiley, creepy face bottom.
Right.
And so like, he's like, there was a few different scenes where he wore like everything, right?
The devil horns and the bottom mask.
But then there were scenes like you said, where it was no top and it was just the bottom.
And then I think there was other ones where it was just the top and no bottom.
So he was mixing it up, but I'm like, why?
I say when he first captures Finn Ethan in the Hawk, you can kind of see his face and paint.
He had like whitish makeup on.
Yeah.
He did.
Okay.
I'm not crazy.
Which might have been like they were trying to go with with the clown route and
then decided, no, he's a magician, but I feel in that scene,
he was like, oh, I'm a magician and it's Vance and Abacadabra on it.
reach out and grab you.
Oh my God, they just hit me..
But that that kind of makes sense, though, too.
Like, why would..
Like, it would just be kind of weird if he was wearing the mask
the whole time, like, especially out in public, you know?
That would be almost like.. like revealing
that he's like kind of got someister thing going on anyways, you know?
Yeah.
Whereas like, if you're just walking around with like makeup, you're and you're driving it around in a
a magician van.
People are going to be like, oh, he's just the weird kids' party magician.
He'll grab you.
The creepiest thing to me was when he says to Finn, he's
like, I just want to look at you.
He's like, sitting there.
I just want to watch you. creepy.
Yeah, Yeah.
That actually, to me, is the one moment where he might have been a
a Penda file, right?
I'edophile.
Fedophile.
Because that was very like fedophile coded, I thought.
Yeah.
There's a lot of creepy moments, obviously, throughout, but
yeah, I don't know.
What was your guy' favorite phone call that Finn
received because he got a call from everybody.
I'll tell you what my favorite was the funniest one to me, but I'm curious.
Anthony, I'll start with you.
What was your favorite sort of like interaction he had with one of the dead kids?
I thought the pinball kid was funny because he was just like talking shit the whole whole time.
So I thought that one was a fun one.
But I liked his, like the conversation that he had with his friend,
I can't remember the kid's name, but the kid that was.
Robin.
Robin.
No, no, no.
Oh, yeah, Robin was the one that fought the kids.
A little Hispanic kid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I liked that call where, you know, he was like, you can't kick his ass.
So like, like, like, I can't kick his ass.
So like, you need to do it for me.
And like, I liked that, like kind of full circle where in
the bathroom early, he said, like sometimes you're going to have to get your hands dirty and you're going to have to like fight
Right.
And like, so him just kind of coaching him through it.
It's like, okay, it's full circle now.
It's like, this is your time to fight.
I need you to do these things.
So that one I think had the most gravity to it.
There was also the baseball kid too, where like that kind of came full circle, you know, around where he's like, oh, he's got a
arm of a cannon or whatever he he said.
Oh, yeah.
I wrote it down.
Yeah.
What did he say?
G or something like that.
I a mint?
I don't know what that means.
He's, his arm is.
The arm is mint.
Mint.
Your arm is mint.
Just meaning like he has like a great great arm..
And that's what he Yeah, like naps.
Actually, I do understand that, Alex remember, it's 100% pure of mint.
That's something I would say in like a long time ago when I was kid.
Is that a a reference to something.
Like mint to me was just like perfect.
Like, oh, everything's clean, like, oh, perfect..
It was something that he would say to annoy both.
I mean, and Donnie.
I'll tell you really quick, my favorite moment, which kind of
had to pay off later, was the blonde kid that's
like, I'm going to fucking kick your ass and this and that, and like, they like
a quick extreme montage of him or whatever.
And then before he gets grabbed and whatnot.
And then at the end, you hear him say that line again, but it's
recontextualized because he's actually referring to kicking
the grabber's ass.
So I thought that was a nice little like payoff when the aggressive blonde.
Was that the pinball kid?
I don't know if it was pinball kid or, but it was a kid with the blonde hair.
He was like a bully or something.
Oh, I think it was a pinball It p.
Yeah, that was heball guy.
Yeah, what did he say?
I'm going to kick your ass.
I'm coming for you, or something like that.
And then you hear it again in the end when when
Finn is actually kicking Ethan Hawk's ass.
Doesn't he say that line in the, like when they pull up to the house?
Something, like in the sees, yeah, when he's in the
cop car and the sister's like having her spirit journey in
the car with him and like she's then hearing that.
Oh, yeah
But, yeah, what do you, I mean, Alex, Arnold, I'll
ask you, what was your favorite sort of a moment with the other dead
kids that talked to Finnny boy?
Well, the, I mean, the first one, because,
which was with Bruce, the baseball guy.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Because
You, go through it and then, um.. like at
first, the grabber says, tells him that it doesn't work.
And then he looks at the cord and it's like, you
can see the wires like cut and they're like, oh, damn.
But then he goes and picks up the phone and he's actually like
you know, he hears it and it, it was kind of just like, wait, what?
So what is this?
He's able to communicate.
And then and then that's why I was thinking like, oh,
that's they're communicating from across the street where they're buried.
Right.
Is that where the other phone is?
A line direct?
Maybe.
Did we ever see it?
I don't remember.
No, I didn't remember.
We saw their she graves, I. Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't remember seeing if there was another phone in that basement.
I don't think there was.
I think it's.
That phone's on another plane of existence.
They find, you know, those spirits, they find any source of energy.
And even though it was cut, they'll somehow do it.
Yeah.
It's a magic phone, basically.
With the help of his sister.
That's why she's able to connect it.
Yeah.
You know.
So is she what you would call it clairvoyant or what would you call
the sister?
Like, her ability of some sort, right?
Yeah, medium.
That's a good one.
Yeah.
What was it?
There's that, that term, Arnold and ghost adventures
and hunters that's something sensitive.
Oh, yeah.
They have four sensitive.
It's the Metichlorians.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Metloans?
They got it from like when they were swimming in a swimming pool.
They did.
The 70s, yeah.
Four females.
I'll tell you guys a quick story.
Anthony, you may already know this one slightly because we both worked at the same TV station back in the day.
I destroyed it with, I won't say her name, but we did a
story where we, one of the guys that worked at our station was like kind of like a medium.
Like you kind of like picked up on the energy from ghosts
and shit in a room and we were doing a story about Elvis and how he haunts like old Palm Springs or whatever
And there was moments when this is true.
I think it's actually on my YouTube.
I could probably share it too lately.
He's like, oh, I'm getting some very negative energy here.
Oh, this is not good.
I need to get out of this room.
And I was like, whoa, like he was really like having
a reaction.
So I think it's something along those lines, maybe.
I don't know.
I don't know why that guy also did Cell Haunted Palm
Springs tours. other one too.
You know, he had to just act it out in kind of.
It's good fores.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think he was more of a very theatrical sort of thing.
Yeah.
I thought you were going to say, like, oh, all of a sudden, like his hips will start gyrating for whatever reason.
But then. he's really, fuck fuck her. very much.
Sorry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex, did you have a favorite moment with any of the creepy phone calls?
I do.
I do like the blonde-up pinball player kid.
He was funny.
The one that's yeah, that's the one that really stood out to me the most.
I will say that like, I know, like that
was kind of like a heartfelt moment for like, you know, the raw hymn
to reconnect with Robin and that whole thing.
It was cool up until they did the training sequence
I found that very, very, like corny.
Stick back. punched.
Yeah.
I it' a glass bottle right there.
Yeah.
Why didn't he It also reminded me, like when he was doing
that, it reminded me of that video game Paro the rapper.
Kick, punch.
It's all in the mind.
If you want to test me.
And I was like, what?
Am I playing Parap of the rapper?
Like, and like, it was cool.
Like, okay, like, that they did that.
It just didn't need that rocky training sequence.
Yeah.
That was It would have been funny.
I would have been like, like found it really funny if
they they had a training sequence where he's like doing push-ups.
He's like, all right, you got to do push-ups.
And he's like doing pull-ups on the.
A little montage.
Yeah.
Yeah, a little montage.
Yeah.
He's all eating the eggs that the scrambled eggs that he gives on.
I'll more.
This movie's funny.
Like, Ethan Hawk is funny weirdly.
Like when he's like, what did you put in it?
He's like, salt and pepper?
If I wanted to poison you, there'd be no point.
I already have you locked in?
Yeah.
He's like, you already draft.
I know.
But yeah, I don't know.
That was kind of like with that overdone
scrambled eggs, uh..
I would have You?
Yeah..
He' using pre-carton
packaged scrambled eggs, that's why..
Powdered eggs.
Astronaut eggs.
Astronaut eggs.
try those sometime.
Well, I can't season it right, and it'll taste good.
There was another part where I thought, you know, it's
like one of the things where he was like having to dig the hole in,
you know, under the tile because one of the kids told her to do that.
And like he was disposing of the dirt in the toilet
I was sitting there waiting for the toilet table clot, right?
It's like, is it going to flood?
Like, is that going to get caught?
Like there were just so many little things where I'm like, okay, like here, and then nothing.
And the fact that he never got caught, like, like digging the hole,,
trying to get through that window.
Yeah, loud crashing noise.
I mean, I guess it's a soundproof room, so Yeah, but Yeah, but it is the window soundproof?
Because I was thinking about the window, not just being a regular ass window.
He got the bars off and then never went back to the window and shimmy up the carpet, dude.
What are you doing?
I was going to say, why didn't he use the carpet, like as a ladder, you know, to make his way up there?
Yeah.
Ethan and I, the grabber put a lot of stuff in there for
him to be able to kind of get out and It was like an escape room.
It had so many options.
Yeah.
But he could have put the carpets in front of the doors too. and now the grab can't get in in, you know?
Yeah, that's heavy.
Can't reach out and grab you when there's an Afghan in your way.
It's good to abracads way, yeah.
Let's talk about the ending really quick because so
they don't explicitly show a dead the grabber in the end.
And obviously there's a black phone too that's out now that I don't think any of us have seen.
No.
So like, how do you think he survives if he does survive?
I think he's dead.
You think he's dead, but he somehow met through him?
I think now he's part of the spirit world.
So I think now he's haunting Finney on a phone.
And so that's where I'm hoping we start to get more of
this like spirit world phone call connection and like,
what the sisters tapped into.
Because remember, they also talk about the mom being like, like having dreams
that were similar and, and like that was the dad's like, you
know, I don't want you to go down that route and like your mom ended up killing herself or whatever it
was because she was having these dreams.
So like, I I think we're going to, I would, I would hope that
the second movie develops more of that because like I said, there was a lot of plot left on the table.
And I'm just like, okay, there's a lot of questions, not a lot of answers.
Absolutely.
And, because Finn also, like, he gets,
okay, Ethan Hawke falls through the great thing and he gets Foot gets stuck.
And then Finn beats him with the phone thing.
And then he also
what does he do to his eyes?
He pokes him or jabs his eyes?
Well, like, he like, chokes him with the phone cord, and then like, it sounds like he breaks his neck.
Okay.
Like, like as he does that or whatever, like he's're all the
kids are talking to him on the phone, which then all of a sudden Ethan Hawkin here,
which is an interesting development too, where it's like on A, either he could always hear it.
He was pretending he couldn't
or B on death's doorstep.
Like that's when he now could hear it.
And then I feel like Finney, like you just see him like
pull extra hard and like snaps his neck, which I don't think phys physiologically
is how never work, but, you know, suspend disf.
It has to has to be..
Like what you were saying, Anthony, I think it plays
into like what I was talking about, that he was kind of gaslighting
like all the kids possibly, that he didn't know that
phone work that actually worked, that it was like a connection to the spiritual world.
He was just saying, oh, don't don't bother listening to that phone.
That phone doesn't work.
But Finney actually did listen to the phone, you know?
Right.
And again, it kind of goes back to like, what is the grabber's ultimate goal?
Is it just, is it just having them be naughty boy so
he has the reason to kill them and that's it?
Or is there more to it?
Like, I don't, I don't really.
Well, I think at 1.2, they said that like Finney was going to be the
last one or like Ethan Hawke said he was going to be the last one.
Like it made you think
that he was trying to accomplish something with the phone, maybe.
Or like, like, oh, you're special, you're different because you can hear the phone.
Like, that's kind of what it was I was gathering from it or like seemed to be eluded.
Like Finney was the one that could hear the phone.
He was this special person and he'd be the last one the would have to kill.
Maybe that's what we're going to go into, right?
Where it's like, oh, in being killed by Finney,
now the grabber is this immortal boogeyman
being that can haunt people.
Like, I don't know. like a fr Freddy Krueger type deal.
Yeah.
Yeah, or some where it's like, yeah, Lives in like the telephone lines or whatever.
Ooh.
That'd be, you know what?
We all need just go watch Blackphone 2 at this point.
I think at this point we need to.
Somebody answered questions.
now.
Yeah.
What's that, Arnold?
I'm kind of interested now.
Like, when does it take place?
Yeah, It takes place in What if it takes place in the late 90s
and they start haunting like internet home lines?
It says F 17.
Dialet?
Yeah, in Blackfoe 2, Finn is now 1, so five years later?
Yeah, the actor grew up
Huh.
So they would had to have done it pretty soon because he's like a big, he's just like a dude now.
The mortgage, uh back pain.
Oh, no, that's us because we're all on our 30s and 40..
Yeah, no, we should just go, I kind of went on, yeah,
when it comes out on streaming, I'm going to watch it, I'm not going to go pay money in the movie theater.
Oh, is that in the $150, by the way, to go to the movie theater.
Yeah, it's in theaters right now.
It's in the years.
But I'm not going to pay $13 even for an
early bird admission. $13 steal for movies these days.
What is it in your neck of the woods?
Yeah, I mean, I want to say it's, you know, well, shoot, I don't know when you take a family forward to the movie, you spend $100
I always end up dropping a seat note to see a movie.
I start going for free because I win my tickets on the radio station.
Oh,ping Shout out to Jammin 99.5.
Wow, 99.5, they're still around, huh?
That's so crazy.
It's jamming now.
It's not M99 Modern or whatever it is it called?
M Modern 995.
They're always changing formats. who owns them
you know?
They change.
The eagle.
The eagle.
Is theeagle still?
Yeah, the eagle's still around.
The Keales?
Yeah.
Make sure to do your Kegels, boys.
Well, yeah, that's the black phone, gentlemen.
I think that's a good stopping point right there.
I mean, did anybody else have any
quick thoughts he wanted to discuss before we start to wrap up?
I will point out that IMDb did rate at 6.9 out of 10 stars.
E. Nice.
Not 6'7.".
Not no.
No, not 6'7.".
A nearly perfect score, 6.9.
But yeah, I think unless anybody has something else, I
think we'll go around the room and give our final thoughts.
And Anthony, you're the guest of honor, so I'll tell us, what
are your final thoughts on the black phone and where can people find you?
Yeah, so I thought it was, like I said, it was an interesting concept.
I feel like the paranormal horror was
done decently well.
It captured my intrigue throughout the
entirety of the film, but I feel like there was a lot of questions that were left unanswered,
whether that be intentional because they were hoping to get a second movie or it was just
made without, you know, answers to those questions is yet to be seen.
I think seeing the second movie hopefully answers some of those.
So I'd say it's a good setup for a film universe.
But again, four years later is when this second movie came out, I find it hard hard to believe that that was the intention
Ethan Hawke's character was intriguing.
I think he did a good job of acting in
a creepy, villainous role.
Again, the motivation wasn't all too fledged out.
The masks were cool looking, but again, no reason really given behind it.
So I feel like there was a lot of potential, but not a ton of substance behind every choice that was made
I have probably, and knowing it's Bloomhouse
since they've done some really good stuff, I think I give it a two out of five.
Do you think they balance the real world horror and
supernatural elements well, all things considered?
Yeah, you know, I'd say that, you know, especially in the 70s when
there was a lot of like abductions, you know, child abduction were
a big worry and scare and kind of the fearmongering thing on the nightly news
I definitely say they leaned into that, that fear, right?
So I definitely think that there was some realism there and
then it piggybacked and teed up the paranormal horror fairly well.
Yeah, like I said, I just, that rating might change seeing Black
Phone 2 and getting some of these questions answered, but just on its own as a standalone film
There was a lot of things that I wish it would have done that it didn't.
And I think it was only like maybe 90 minutes.
Like it wasn't that long of a movie..
I feel like they could have packed a couple extra minutes in there and really answered some of these questions.
Watch you watch Black Phone 2 and your six floor goes Yeah Yeah.
I'm like, it's a one.
Cool.
Where can people find you?
Anything you want to plug into you're working on?
I am off social media because it's a plug.
No, I'm still at toner on the social medias but
not doing a whole ton because the internet is a cesspool again.
We have that dynamic where like, we don't really talk regularly all
the time, but we constantly send memes back and forth to each other on TikTok and Instagram.
Yeah, you don't send me memes for a few days.
I'm like, Adrian got banned again.
Yeah.
Somehow.
You know, I've been a good little boy lately.
I'll have you know, not a naughty boy..
Oh, good.
The black phone guy is not going to come.
Grabber woke up in Abradabria.
Exactly.
Unless I be grabbed by the grabber.
Yeah, sorry if I Anthony, sometimes I'll like, I'll respond to your
something that you send on TikTok like a month later or three months later.
Oh, it's good.
It shouldn't just lets you guys know that I'm thinking about you.
Oh, good.
I hope you're happy with what we've done with the place, you know, got a whole new streaming thing.
It looks nice.
I like the video aspect.
I think you guys, the TikTok, social media stuff, I'm really digging it.
It'll come across my feet every now and then.
I'm like, I got these crazy clowns.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've had a lot of fun without you.
So, you know, always is is the case, right.
It's usually a lot of fun without me.
Whenever you want to be on, you know, you know it's an open invitation.
No, I appreciate it.
Yeah.
Life has been fun and crazy and everything in between,
but but there's some stability here and there.
So we'll try to get more of these on the calendar.
Can we talk about this?
You're a married man now.
Is that a I am.
Yeah, absolutely.
Married man.
two little ones.
My wife's first marriage.
She has two kids.
So now I have two kids.
They're great, but they are they are tweens.
That's the in Adrian.
Your one is also in that age age.
Well, I'm a few years away from the tween stage, but but
yeah, it's going to come How old is Monte?
He's eight, so yeah.
Oh, okay.
So, yeah, a little ways away.
Just a couple couple more years.
That's still a fun age.
That's how old they were when I met them.
And that was fun.
They still like to play and goof around.
And now I get a lot of eye rolls.
Yeah, well, yeah, he still he still likes me,
you know, to talk to me at this stage, you know, and about Minecraft and 6'7
and skivity toilet and all his interests.
Yeah.
But yeah.
Awesome.
Well, yeah, congratulations again.
Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for being on.
It's been a pleasure.
But yeah.
Alex, I'll go to you next.
What are your final thoughts on the black phone?
Black phone.
I instantly thought of
like Blumhouse and like, I, I, I feel like a lot
of my, um, feelings towards this movie are
very similar to what Anthony had already spoken to.
Um,
A lot of questions left unanswered.
Nothing very, very...
The gravity of this film never reached the fever
pitches, like as I would have seen. liked to have seen like how it did in
weapons.
You know, Weapons had that had that like,
like weight to it of like these kids.
But you look at Josh Brolin's character and
how he felt about the missing kids and, you know, the kids that
like, you never, I think what was really missing were the parents of
these kids and like how they felt, you know?
Like if you, if he had cast in somebody to like
like, like seeing them a little bit more,
like have a presence, you know, maybe maybe the whole point
was that they were the parents of these kids were kind of absentee
and that's what attracted the grabber to them.
That's what I'm thinking now as I'm talking about it.
But at the same time, there should be some people who have like some
care for these kids outoducted, especially
you know, the first kid, Bruce, Yamada,
you know, like They show a little like thing of him
as a baby with his parents and they seem like pretty like happy and
well balanced, you know?
So I don't know.
A little bit more of that would have been nice to
see. would have made me feel like it would
have given me more a reason to care about the kids at.
Like, not that you.
These kids are like, yeah. abducted, obviously.
This is a batnet abduction is a bad thing. kids.
Exactly.
But, you know, it's it doesn't feel earned.
You know what I mean?
Like, we talk about that a lot.
It like, it doesn't feel earned.
Finney's felt earned, yeah.
100%
But, like, all the rest, like, it just kind of felt like, maybe
Robins, you know, because it was Finney's kid, but Finnny's friend, you know?
And you, you, you wanted to root for him to be still be alive, but obviously they were all dead, you know?
Yeah, again, Bloomhouse, you know, it's it's hit
or miss for me when it comes to Bloomhouse films.
I know they have a lot of hits.
Is the No, the Sau series isn't part of the Bloomhouse.
No.
I don't think so.
I forget.
I like Herge.
They did Insidious.
They did, what's that one Android movie?
That was it?
Android movie.
Oh, was it Max Machina?
No, no, no, no, no.
Megan.
Megan.
Oh, Oh, Megan.
That was.. didn't.
So, like, what wasn't What I find interesting is that
during, like right around the time that Black
phone came came out, like a lot of those Blumhouse movies, they did this
whole huge thing during Universal Halloween Horror Nights.
That was like basically just all Blum House stuff.
They had Black foam Megan
So they just kind of like crammed them all and it
that's what it seems like that's what they're trying to do.
They're just cash cowing a lot of stuff, you know?
I mean.
Bloomhouse was hedging their bets.
Yeah, I get that.
Yeah.
Blue Mouse did do, is it Blue Mouse or Blumhouse?
I don't know.
Blumhouse, I think.
Blhouse.
They did do The Saw movies.
You were right about that.
Lions Gate Twisted Pictures and then Blumhouse was actual.
Okay, so like Blumhouse probably just picked up the mantle after like Gate and anything.
And anyways,
two and a half out of five is my score.
I was entertained.
And like we've been talking about, I'm curious about
like how hopefully the Black phone 2 will.
flesh out the mythology.
Yeah.
I'm not
I'm not very confident.
I feel like they will drop the ball.
You know, because they even talked about like the sequel to I've
heard, I haven't I haven't seen Megan, but I heard the sequel to Megan kind of sucks.
Seems like a chuck the shark, yeah.
I heard that she's not like the bat, like, she's not like the antagonist in the sequel.
That's what I heard.
That's like what I think.
It seems like they went like comedic too, like how Chucky eventually
went like in this comedy horror route.
It seems like that's what Meg has done.
Like what they did to Boba Fett in that show that they made. like Boba Fett was supposed to be a bad bad guy was awful.
That was terrible.
And then in the show, he's like, I'm a sheriff and I'm here to
But you know, that was a good dude.
That would Robert Rodriguez's vision to make him
like this the cowboy sort of like Wild West sort of
feeling.'s a cowboy.
Slight correction.
Adrian.
Twisted pictures did Saw, and then Blumhouse
just recently purchased the rights.
They purchased 50% of the rights to Saw.
So yeah, they didn't create it.
They just
now own F. That always happens when they make like 30 movies in a single front.
And poor, it's always like that.
It's always 30 films, 10 films.
You know, they'll probably be a black film three, four, or five, eventually.
I'm sure.
Eventually I unlock phone the beginning.
Oh, yeah.
I wonder the prequels.
Yeah.
I wonder when like even Hawk will stop like playing the grabber.
I'm telling you, his daughter's going to take over.
Maya Hawk will be the new grabber or something.
She'll be the first grabber.
Maya Hawk or Hawk Tua?
Hey.
Hey.
But yeah.
No, that's my score.
You can find me at Daily Dares and all the socials.
Perfectfect.
Thanks for that, Alex.reciate that.
Arnold, let's start with your, yeah, what are your final thoughts on this movie?
Okay.
Okay, so there's a few things that I just thought of
as you guys were talking, and I don't want to forget him.
So, Bloomhouse.
I couldn't help but think of Officer Bloom.
When I think of Bloom, yeah, Officer Bloom is the one
who caught me in high school, who's the one who called me
out class when I got caught buying weed in high school.
Is this a shout out to him or is it like you're trying to call him out?
It's aumatic. experience.
And I just can't help but think.
When I think of Bloomhouse in like office or Bloom
his house?
No, no, not Bloom's house.
You were a naughty boy back then.
He's the grab.
He grabbed me out of the class.
Oh, I got suspended.
Oh, got a sheet three bells long, my friend?
And just thinking about, you know, how this took place.
So this took place in the 70s, the stories in the 70s.
So I remember when I was a kid
and say, I wanted to open the window and just like put my my
arm out the window or put my hand stick my hand out the window.
Whether it was my grandma or my aunt or uncle, my parents, they'd be like, oh, be careful.
Somebody might grab you and take you.
I don't know if it's
I thought you were going with that hereditary route for your marvel's going to be bbed off.
Mom did did that recently.
We were driving to lunch and then this guy had his arm out the window.
He's, he has his arm out.
Somebody's going to grab him.
I was like, hold on, what?
You never lose your motherly. instincts, I think.
Yeah, so that was just
two funny little thoughts that I thought about.
didn't really have anything to do with the movie.
I guess sort of the movie made me think of that.
But going into the movie, the
mask, it looked pretty frightening, at which I had
no idea what the movie was going to be about, but then
from the beginning, you realize, you know, after Bruce
goes up goes missing, you're like, oh, and then the way, how like the credits
how it's starts and you're like, okay, okay, it's really setting it up.
Okay.
It's this kind of movie.
All right.
A missing child, you see all that.
And I really like that that his homie
Robin is sad to see see him get grabbed
and taken and unfortunately killed.
He was a real one.
He was a real one.
Yeah.
But they all
showeded him and tried to help him and
get into whether it was like digging holes or finding that cable.
It was, it was a pretty
you know, you know, you guys like, know, I like really bad movies.
And so, uh, I, what are you are you talking about?
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I thought it was really good.
Um,
And um from from
the beginning to the end, I was like glued to it.
I was like at the edge of my seat.
And, um, and then this is after
a full day of work and then after eating a full entire meal Hit always seems to be the place
probably because they're close by, and there was a free
offer of a free uh, California chicken
club sandwich with an $8 purchase.
So if you guys have the habit app, make sure to check your
offers because I think it expires on the 25th.
No habits in my neck of the woods, unfortunately.
So keep that in mind.
Yeah, yeah.
But, um yeah.
And so overall, the score that I'm
going to give it, I give it a four, a letterbox, four out of five.
I really enjoyed it.
There's no wrong way to score a movie.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
There are wrong ways to score. score
you know what I mean.
But there's no wrong way to score a movie.
Yeah, don't buy out in the open in front of during the passing periods or anything.
Because of the implication.
You know.
You don't want to score Mr. Bloom's house.
By grabbing.
You't want to score with Mr. Bloom?
Yeah, Officer Bloom.
Officer Bloom?
I'm sure.
I wonder if he's what he's up to now.
I think.
Or is that his company, Bloom House.
Yeah, he started a studio after he arrested you.
You made him do a career change.
He's like, I can't deal with these kids.
He's
anymore.
I'm going to go to Hollywood.
The grabpper reminds me of Arnold.
That's
Where can people find you, Arnold?
You can find me on all the interest medias
because it seems like all, you know, algorithms now,
it's going by interest.
Exactly.
I'm everywhere.
Yeah.
Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snap, threads.
Yeah, I'm all over.
All of those apps, they're not social media apps anymore.
They're content driven apps that are all algorithmic
and interest-based and everything is a search engine because Google's dead.
I don't search.
You know what I search?
I search Reddit.
That's what I do.
That's what I put into Google.
I like, How do I fix this thing
plus Reddit and then I get, you know, results.
I just heard I heard Pornhub, so I'm getting weird responses back.
Another great source, yeah.
I heard something that like 50% of what's on the
internet now is this like AI and bots.
Yeah.
Like on all social media.
We're getting very close close to dead internet.
Yeah.
Yeah. 50% of all.
They were actually saying that the internet is dead dead, actually.
Yeah. 50% of all internet traffic is, in fact bots.
That's not even like an opinion.
That's a fact.
That even goes towards it's like job applications, too.
Like if you're looking looking for a job.
I heard like
within 24 hours, if you're not applying to a
new post, it's you're out of shit out of luck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Damn.
Yes, sir.
That's It's a brave new world, gentlemen.
It's a brave new world.
Speaking of brave new worlds, we have a brave new segment,
Anthony, you, I don't know if you caught on this, but, I haven't my favorite segment of
the show is Arnold the Arnold Sn a meter.
I don't know if that's actual theme, but well, we'll put it in post later.
Arnold, your snooze omeer ranking for this movie?
Did you fall asleep?
Not at all. all?
Oh yeah, yeah, I went into all that about habit, having a full-on meal
and I didn't get sleepy at all.
It fully, captivated
me and kept me, I was into it.
And yeah, a zero Z
movie.
And it was not the kind
of, because I thought it was just like, oh, like a horror just because like the way the mask looked and everything.
But I like how all these horror horror
flicks that we've been watching it's's not like your typical, I guess I haven't watched too many.
I'm just used to like, like the standard,
scary movie, but these all have different twists
and nuances and they' different flavors.m I I'm enjoying them.
And that's the art old Snoozy meter.
Good stuff.
To be fair, Anthony, to be fair, Anthony, it's just, we just reframed that.
I was going to say, we did the Z ratings before, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now there's a theme song.
I like it.
Yeah.
It's It's the best.
We've.
We've gone around almost the entire table.
Last up.
B a below TZ too big.
Yes, sir.
You're best for last.
So my rating didn't change for my initial score back in
2022, which at this point feels like 10 years ago.
It was two and a half stars, but it's, I'm going to say it's a strong
throng.
It's a strong two and half stars.
And I'm going to read you my letterboxer review that I wrote today.
The black phone throws us into the 1970s Suburbia
where kids ride bikes un supervised parents drink their feelings, and
apparently nobody notices a man cruising around in a suspicious black thing..
Right away, we're living in a world'urping your soup as
grounds for a beating, because 70s parents, I guess, and where C
will genuinely interrogate a child about her dreams, like she's the town oracle
Gwen, by the way, is the best character in the movie, and she knows it.
She curses like a sailor, fights back twice as hard, and somehow
becomes the police department's strongest lead, even though her evidence is just visions from her dreams.
Meanwhile, her dad is a violent alcoholic and also, unfortunately
and I apologize for this, a pretty bad actor, tough combo.
When Finney grabbed Finney gets grabbed by a guy
we barely see, but who radiates, oh, no energy from the first frame, things get creepy fast.
Ethan Hawk is genuinely unsettling as the grab,
hovering between childish whimsy and full-blown predator
He delivers lines like, I just want to look at you with that softace that crawls under your skin.
But the movie hardly uses him.
He's a shadow, an idea, a mask, effective, but I'll be underloyed for someone as terrifying.
Once is trapped, the supernatural elements kick in.
The phone on the keeps ringing, and the hears it too
though the hears it too.
He pretends not to.
The victims call him to advice, strategies,
and encouragement, turning the whole thing into a paranormal escape
the hint come from dead with attitude.
Some of the filmmaking choices wobble like when's bizarre running in place Dolly shot?
I don't know if you guys caught that.
It was supposed to be a Dolly Zoom.
I was like, she's just running on a treadmill.
Yeah.
But the movie maintains a solid tension.
Max, the grab's brother, is the one guy actually trying to solve the case
and he gets ignored by the cops in favor of a child psychic.
When he finally stumbles into the truth, well, the grab takes care of that real quick.
The final showdown gives Finn his long awaited hero moment.
He uses everything the ghost taught him, plays the grab's twistedy
boy game, and sets a brutal trap involving dirt,
wire, and a phone weighted with sand.
The kid is intense, cathartic, and earned.
Too bad the cops raid the wrong house
first, but honestly, that feels right for this world.
If F escapes and the siblings reunite, roll credits.
Overall thoughts, the black phone has some interesting ideas about childhood
trauma, supernatural revenge, andassed predator whose psychology we never truly understand.
Ethan Hawk is fant, but we barely see him.
And the film never explains why he kidnaps and kills these kids.
The writer said he's a
Pendophile?
Pendophile?
But the movie never commits to showing or even hinting
at that with clarity, which leaves a strange empty space at the core of the story.
It all adds up to a movie that's compelling in moments, but ultimately
didn't really pull me in, and that's my score for Letterbox.
2.5 stars out of five.
You can find me on Letterbox. by the way, Boot's Too big.
You can find the show all over the internet, like Arnold said.
Right, Arnold, we're everywhere, guys.
We are on Blue Sky.
We are on Instagram.
We are on TikTok Threads, Facebook.
And even X, for some reason.
I don't know. why we're still on X, but Do we have fans yet?
We're working on that.
In termss are grabbing all the Arnold stretching and
cooking different meals.
We'll see.
You can visit our our website, never seen at podcastodcast.com.
Shout out to you, Anthony, for troubleshooting several times.
I't give that issues with that.
My pleasure.
But it's up there.
It's still there.
You can email us, podcast.neseen at gmail.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
Subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
If you like the show, share share it, leave us a review.
Have you seen Blackphone 2?
What are your thoughts on it?
Big thanks to Mr. K Maps and a Burn cycle for intro and outro music.
You can follow Kyle on Instagram at selfies underscore underscore and underscore pets.
Thank you for listening.
Any final thoughts from the gentlemen.
No AI in this podcast, damn it.
Not with that attitude.