The Steves discuss another of their favorite movies from last year, The Black Phone, along with what's making them happy in pop culture today!
What's making us happy?
Movie Discussion
Ending- Any music or audio clips were borrowed from the original source material.
The Steves discuss another of their favorite movies from last year, The Black Phone, along with what's making them happy in pop culture today!
What's making us happy?
Movie Discussion
Ending- Any music or audio clips were borrowed from the original source material.
Hello, returning Happys and new listeners. This is Steve Bennet-Martin.
Stephen:And this is Stephen Martin-Bennet, and welcome to a
Steve:lifetime of happiness. The podcast where we take you on our journey through some of the movies, shows, and other bits of pop culture that are helping to keep us happy while hopefully bringing a smile to your face along the way. In
Stephen:this January, we're discussing our favorite movies of 2022 with another of our favorites Black
Steve:phone. Before we get into that, my love though, what's been keeping you
Stephen:happy? So it has been the Bayonetta Trilogy. On the Nintendo Switch. Yes. Did you love your bayonet? I do love my bayone. I first was introduced to Bayonetta on the Wheat U and now the full trilogy is on Switch with the new released Bayonetta three. And there's even. A prequel game coming out this spring, so I'm getting all the bayonetta I could ever want. Excellent.
Steve:I love how Nintendo's been embracing that IP for you. Yes.
Stephen:Now, what about you? What's been making you
Steve:happy? Obscure Japanese, basically graphic novel video games. That sounds very you. Yes, it does. This time it's the AI somn files available in all systems. Of course, I'm playing it on the switch. The best system, in my opinion. Yes. But it is a murder mystery where you're a cop. But of course there's sci-fi techie things involved with it, and it's one of those where you got to try and do all the different what ifs to solve the mysteries.
Stephen:I love that. That sounds like all kinds of fun.
Steve:Yes. Now, why did we choose black phone as one of our favorites for the year?
Stephen:So it is, it looks to be a simple film, but it's quite chilling and the way everything, you know, connects together and the performances, even the color palette, like it all tells a story. It's kind of impressive and it sticks with
Steve:you. Yes. Now Black phone is an American coming of age supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derickson, who co-wrote along Sea Robert Cargill, and they both produced it alongside Jason Bloom. Huh.
Stephen:Funny enough, another bloom house production.
Steve:Yes. Also, Derickson was originally set to direct Dr. Strange and the multiverse of. But left due to creative differences and for more on that movie, stay tuned
Stephen:next week. Exactly. So it's an adaptation of the 2004 short story of the same name by Joe Hill, who is a successful author in his own right. But Fun Fact is The Talented Song of Stephen King. Good
Steve:for him. I'm glad writing credits for semen Now it was released on June 24th, 2022, with the budget between 16 and 18 million and had a box office of 161.4 million. Now the movie
Stephen:was delayed from its initial January, 2022, release to June of 2022 due to unexpectedly great preview showings. Once Bloom House realized just how great early reactions were, they decided to give it a summer release date, which was actually smart for them. In its original January spot, it would've been fighting against Scream five.
Steve:Oh, well there we go. We wouldn't want that. No, no. It's Stars of Mason Themes, Madeline McGraw, Jeremy Davis, James Ranson and Ethan Hawk. Oh,
Stephen:definitely. Dark Turn for Ethan Hawk.
Steve:He is now always a villain between doing that and the the Disney. Show we the sand each.
Stephen:Oh, where is he? Moon night. In moon night. Yeah. And
Steve:So one, two punch of him being a villain for me in a very short period of time. So he's a bad guy. Now, in this one in 1978, a serial child of Dr. Nicknamed the Grabber Prowls, the Straits of a Denver suburb, siblings Finny and Gwen Blake live in an area with their abusive alcoholic asshole of a. at school. Finny is frequently bullied and harassed. He has a friendship with his classmate Robin, who fs off the Lucy corner room the bathroom and had no problem taking on a school bully Moose and beating him to a pulp. Finny has been helping Robin with his math and has earned a protector, but they also share a love of Bruce Lee movies, A boy from another school that Finny knew from baseball. Bruce is abducted by the. Gwen who has psychic dreams, much like her late mother, dreams of Bruce's kidnappings and seas, that he was taken by a man and a black fan with black balloon. Detective Wrighton Miller come to school to interview Gwen, but struggled to believe her claims that it was a dream when she has specifics of the black balloons that no one outside the police knew. Yeah,
Stephen:I took him down. Obviously, I'm the grabber. You dumb fucking fart knockers.
Steve:Yes. I love, I love her in this. Yeah, there's a perfect mix of like innocent child and like I've been through some shit. Adults, yes. Now do you remember warnings and stories of grabbers growing up?
Stephen:Yeah, so when I was eight years old, so in second grade there was a thing in West Virginia where there was a story going around in the papers and stuff about someone in a blue panel van, kind of like the grabber's van. Mm-hmm. where his is black. This is just blue with no wording on it. Abducting blonde children. Yes. So I was
Steve:terrified. I always heard like general threats. My mom was a big fan of like threatening us into be behaving cuz it wasn't happening naturally. So it was very much a like, you do that or you'll get grabbed, oh my God, don't do that. Or you'll get taken away. Like, don't do that or the grabber's gonna get you. But I don't, that's not cool but I don't remember like an actual.
Stephen:Like
Steve:thing of it happening, a thing of it happening. I just remember it always kind of being a, a threat or like a fear that parents had. Yeah. Now, do you believe certain people are blessed with gifts as specific and concrete as Gwen's dreams? 100%. I
Stephen:absolutely do. I have no doubt that there, like if we can see things in cards, yeah. There's no reason somebody can't do that naturally in their. Without needing cards. Agree. Now, on Friday nights, Gwen stays at her friend Susie's house so she can have a night off from her dad's drinking and temper. Because when he wakes up in the morning, hungover, the slightest noise sets him off. And on Saturday morning, Finny wakes up to the sound of his sister screaming and his dad beating her because the police had come to his. He makes Gwen say that she doesn't hear voices and her dreams aren't special, but it's clear to all of us in the audience that Gwen has a special gift like her mother.
Steve:Yes. Now walking home on a Saturday, Robin sees a man get out of a black van wearing a cape. That night calls go around the neighborhood that Robin's missing. Finny. Ask Gwen to try and have a dream. She has religious things she uses to create an altar and praise to Jesus to give her dreams. Soon the police show up to talk to her.
Stephen:Do you think that the second time they showed up is because they had no other leads and they're so desperate because it's children, they're missing, they'll do whatever they can do at, at this point? Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is too, cuz we don't hear that conversation. It's it's a just a montage that we're shown. Yes. But I absolutely think at that point their cops are like, what can you tell us? I swear we need something.
Steve:Yes. Now, on Friday in Science Finney is paired with Donna, the girl he. On the way home, it's time for Gwen to head to Suzy's. Vinny runs into someone claiming to be a part-time magician who has dropped his groceries all over the ground. Vinny goes over to see if he can help, just as he notices black balloons in the van. The grabber wraps him in balloon strings and sprays something into his mouth and eyes to knock him out. Before he succumb, he does fight back. Gwen hears her brother is missing and begins to. The
Stephen:way that the grabber did the whole trip and spilling of the groceries made him seem like harmless and like a clown. Cuz he is like, whoops, oh, silly me. Oh, look what happened. And you can see that a child would immediately be like, oh no, they need, need help. Help. Yeah. And so, especially somebody like Finn who is genuinely kind.
Steve:Yes. He awakens in a soundproof base. The grabber says he won't hurt Finnie ever again and that nothing bad is going to happen to him.
Stephen:He also called him Johnny. which was interesting. I know. I
Steve:think he lacks credibility at this point. Is his problem
Stephen:Well, and it, it's a backstory that they don't ever discuss and it makes me wonder who Johnny might be. I
Steve:don't know. It's weird. Yeah. Now on the wall is a disconnected black rotary phone that the grabber says does not work and definitely will become a part of the movie, never, especially
Stephen:a movie
Steve:named black phone. Yeah. Later if Finn hints the, here's the phone ring and answers.
Stephen:your arm is mint. You almost had me.
Steve:Fannie remembers that one interaction with him on the field and knows that it's Bruce's ghost. Unable to remember his own name or who he was when he was alive. And Bruce tells Finny about a floor tile he can remove to dig a tunnel to escape.
Stephen:So Ethan's Hawk's performance is terrifying.
Steve:And the mask only makes it worse. Yeah,
Stephen:so the bottom of the mask, so the top of the mask looks kind of like a devil or a demonn horns, but the bottom can be neutral, a frown or a smile. And sometimes Ethan Hawk only wears the bottom and you can see his real eyes and the top part. But the performance he's giving with most of his face covered. Yeah. Is
Steve:impressive. Yeah. It's chilling. And one thing I really admire about this movie on the second watching is, while it is a supernatural movie, by definition, it's impressive, Hey, how real they make the worlds feel. Like, this feels like a town you could visit. This feels like a family dynamics that happen. Mm-hmm. like it all feels so real that when the phone rings, you don't think twice about it being a ghost on the other
Stephen:end. No. It, it's not a stretch and. you know, and Finney probably answers it because in his mind, fuck, I'm locked in a basement by the grabber. I'm gonna take every opportunity there is. Maybe he lied about the phone. Maybe this is somebody that can help me.
Steve:Yeah. And one thing I I found interesting was the idea that the first thing you lose when you die is your name and who you were. How does that make you feel or
Stephen:think? Well, because is your name really your identity or is your identity made up? what you were where like we see later on, one of the people was like, I don't, that name doesn't mean anything to me. I told you I was a paper boy. Yeah. Like that means more to him than the name that he had. True. So I
Steve:can see that. Yeah. And Bruce also mentions that they all hear the phone ring, but that Vinny special in his ability to hear what's on the other side. Do you think this is cuz he has a similar gift from his sister that he might have gotten from his mom? I
Stephen:definitely think so. I think that it's saying, His isn't honed in the same way, but he does have that connection to the spiritual side. Now, Gwen had a dream of Bruce's abduction and Finnie being trapped behind a door in a brick house, and the police search for Finnie so far has been totally unsuccessful. Finnie begins digging under the tile that Bruce told him about and flushing the dirt to cover the tracks. The grabber brings fannie's food and at first fannie's hesitant to eat and the grabber's. Eat it. Don't eat it. What do I need to drug you for? You're already here. And when he leaves the grabber leaves the door to the basement unlocked, and Fannie prepares to sneak out, but to stop by another boy, the paperboy that I mentioned on the phone called Billy. don't go upstairs. It's a trap. He explains that this is a game that the grabber plays, and he's waiting upstairs to attack Finnie with a belt if he leaves the basement, and he'll beat him until he passes out. And Billy instructs him to use a cord that Billy found to get out via the basement window. But when climbing up, Finnie breaks the bars on the window preventing'em from ever climbing back up.
Steve:Yeah, and I hate that I probably know the answer to this question, but the grabber playing these games is such, so truly chilling. Do you think he wants Finny to be a good boy, or does he want Finny to be a naughty boy who he punishes?
Stephen:It's absolutely naughty boy, because we hear that later. Yes. Now the Paper Boy is a reference to a real person. Yes,
Steve:Johnny Gush, a paper boy from Iowa who was on a route with his dog, Gretchen, and disappeared. His dog was found later, but Johnny's disappearance remains unsolved to this day and no one names their dog Gretchen anymore cuz it's stupid
Stephen:Oh, good times. Yes. G Wind dreams of Billy being abducted, sees the grabber in a full view of the house, including the weirdly shaped tree in the front yard. She confines in her father about what is happening and asks if maybe her dreams are real. He says her mother was touched, but her voices and dreams made her do crazy things, and it led her to take her own life. He doesn't want that future for Gwe. But what if it could help me find Finnie? She says, and immediately the dad takes her out in the car to scout for the house that she saw. Like the father is not a good person. No, not at all. This is one moment where he's like acting like an actual
Steve:parent though. And I think that having your child being taken can also change that. Mm-hmm. I think that as, as rough as my father could be at some points growing up, if I went missing his behavior towards my brother and I would've been ra radically different if it was something he had to face. Right?
Stephen:A hundred percent.
Steve:Yep. Now Wrighton Miller show up to a Brickhouse and speak to an eccentric cokehead named Max who's staying in the area with his brother. Max came to his TA brother's house because he a series of on the case and wants to crack it. The police write him off as a nut. It's revealed Finn is being held in that house's basement, which he's unaware of, and the grabbers Max's brother after an agitated exchange with the grabber where he tests Finn's. He makes it seem as if he would've let fco if Finnie had only told him his real name. Do you think that's the truth? No, I just don't think that any of this is true.
Stephen:No, I think that that's one of the, it's just a mind game with Finnie at that
Steve:point. Yeah. Now, do you think that you can possibly get a live with someone where there's a captive in your house and you don't know it?
Stephen:No. I mean, I mean, on several things. A like we also see that whenever, The grabber is home and stuff. There's a bike lock on the front door. Like how do you live wi Like what do you tell your brother? Oh yes, we have to keep a bike lock on the front door. Why We live in the ghetto No, and he doesn't though. I mean, you can see that and like don't go in the basement type of things. Yeah, and like it's very, it's very weird. I don't know how you could stay with someone. and not figure something out. Yeah, just
Steve:like, like just don't go in the man cave.
Stephen:Babe. Where is he? Whenever his brother, the grabber is sitting shirtless in the kitchen waiting with a belt? Like, is he just coming down off a coke and he is passed out? I would guess so. Yeah. So Finney speaks to another one of the victims, Griffin, on the phone. You don't have much time. The grabber hasn't been sleeping. He's afraid his brother is going to find out. And Finny finds out that since he hasn't been playing naughty boy, you know, going upstairs when the door's unlocked has prevented the grabber from moving on to the next phase of the grabber's Twisted game. And Griffin shows finny a combination to a lock and informs him that the grabber has fallen asleep. in the naughty boy position. Mm-hmm. Fannie sneaks upstairs and on the third try unlocks the bike lock and, but the grabber's dog alerts him if Fannie's escape, Fannie's fleeing down the street. But is recaptured bad dog? Like I know Fannie is scared and fleeing, but I wish he had started screaming sooner because he screamed and two people turned on their lights, but he had already been captured by that point. Yeah. If. Had just started screaming the moment he was out of the house. I would like to think that somebody might have looked out the window and seen him
Steve:running. Yeah. Now despondent over has failed. Escape a attempt. Finny answers the phone to hear another victim. A punk called Vance who Finny was scared of. Vince tells him, today's the day and the Finny should be terrified of what's to come. Vaon firm's finnie of a connecting storage room. He can escape through if he breaks a hole in the wall and exits through the freezer on the other side of the. Finny creates a hole with the toilet tank cover and enters the back of the freezer only to discover. The freezer door is locked. The phone rings one more time with Robin at the end of the line. He comforts Finny. Tells him he's been watching over him this whole time and encourages him to finally stand up and fight for himself. He says that Finny has always been a fighter. He may have gotten knocked down, but he gets back up every time like Spider-Man, Robin, and Chuck's finnie to remove the phone receiver and pack it with dirt. He had dug up to use as a weapon. This will be the last call Finny has to use what they gave him to get out. So Finny begins to set everything up. Now at this point in the movie, how did you feel it was going to end? Do you think that Finn would succeed in murdering him, or do you think you would escape with the Graber
Stephen:Alive? So with a horror movie like this, I actually wasn't sure. I mean, with what they've been showing us and things, and it hasn't really been working, you think it's not gonna be successful. But then this pep talk from Robin, you think maybe. But you know with how dark the movie is, yeah, I was kind of expecting the end to be somebody else waking up in the room and Finnie being the next voice on the phone line.
Steve:That would've been dark. I'm glad he survived. Maybe now Gren Dreams, Vance's abduction, and is able to interact with the dream and ride along in the cop car. And she discovers the property of the grabber. She finds the house and contacts Rasen Miller Max realizes Finnie is being held in the house and rushes to the basement to free. But his brother, the grabber, kills him with an ax. The police rushed to the house that Gwen found, but find it empty in the basement. They find the buried bodies of the grabber's victims with only one freshly dug. Graves still empty. Now, how long do you think that he could have gotten away with it in a small town like this? I mean, at this point there's how many graves? Five. Five.
Stephen:There were five dead kids and Fannie would've been six. Mm-hmm. He only seems to be abducting poor children. and we've seen in our world that the less fortunate our communities are mostly overlooked. Yeah. And so unfortunate. Yeah. The grabber tells Finnie, you know, I was gonna take my time. I want this to really hurt. And the grabber attacks finnie with an ax, but Finnie ducks out of the way. Finny runs and manages to trip the grabber with a cord given to Finny from the paperboy, causing him to fall into the tunnel. Finny dug with the advice from Bruce where the grabber breaks and traps his ankle and the window bars placed at the bottom. Finny begins attacking the grabber with a black phone receiver as instructed by Robin. The grabber gets a hold of him, but Finny takes his mask and the grabber starts freaking out without the mask on. And Finny begins to choke the grabber with a phone cord and the ghost begin to taunt the grabber over the phone before Finny breaks his neck with the phone cord killing him because as Bruce said, his arm is mint. Yes.
Steve:And like I hinted earlier, I didn't, I didn't know how this movie was gonna end. I thought he might escape. I didn't think he was going to kill him like that. There was just something so brutal and visceral about it, and I loved that Snap and they all worked together. They did. And pieced everything that had happened so far into the end scene. So it was really well done.
Stephen:Do you think that the grabber heard the voices on the phone? Yeah.
Steve:At the indefinitely. I do too. I love that for him. Yep. Now, Fannie distracts the guard dog with meat from the freezer that was shown to him by Vince and escapes the house using the combination he learned from. If Finny exits a house across the street from the grave sites where he reunites with Gwen, the police rush to the property. The siblings comfort each other as their father arrives and tearfully apologizes for his treatment. The kids are unov, but the two have each other. As always. Back at school, a confident fice sits next to us crashing class and asks her to call him Finn. Any thoughts?
Stephen:So it was a dark movie. With hope though, which is always interesting. Yeah. In a tale like this, like, and it's always dark whenever it's children that are being killed. Mm-hmm. Ethan Hawk's performance was chilling. Yeah. Gwenny is one of the real heroes in this because she never gave up. Nope. Bravo to Finny for never giving up either. you know, sometimes in a situation like that, especially as a 13 year old mm-hmm. you might not have the wits about you to try to fight back more than once or twice. Yeah. I don't, it's, it's so well done. We've seen it again now it's still just as good. Mm-hmm. The performance is really good. It's oh fun fact. Gwen is the older sister of the little girl that was in Megan. Oh, cool. Not Megan herself, but the girl that's her paired.
Steve:Child. Oh, cool story. Yeah. All right. Well, you know what I also think is really cool? Is it our listeners? Yes. And I would love to hear what you thought of this episode. You could do that by emailing us at happy life pod gmail.com,
Stephen:or you can get in touch with us on all the socials, whether that is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok at Happy Life Pod.
Steve:And then till next time, everybody stay happy.