Ethan Hawke is feeling pretty confident that The Black Phone is better than Sinister and is sharing his thoughts on why. Hawke starred in the 2012 horror film as true-crime novelist Ellison Oswalt as he and his family move into a house with a collection of home videos depicting grisly murders that awakens a terrifying spirit. Sinister scored mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and largely positive reviews from audiences, becoming a major box office hit with over $87 million grossed against its $3 million budget.
Hawke and co-writer/director Scott Derrickson are reuniting for The Black Phone, an adaptation of Joe Hill's short story of the same name centered on a young boy kidnapped by a serial killer who begins communicating with his past victims in the hopes of escaping. Derrickson co-wrote the adaptation with his creative partner C. Robert Cargill, with the two putting their focus on the film after departing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness over creative differences with the studio. Following its acclaimed Fantastic Fest debut, The Black Phone is set to hit theaters this month.
Ahead of the film's release, Ethan Hawke caught up with SlashFilm to discuss The Black Phone. In looking at his prior collaboration with Scott Derrickson, Hawke felt that The Black Phone is better than Sinister thanks to Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's script and more "mature filmmaking." See what Hawke explained below:
"Making a good horror film is a lot like solving a geometry problem. There's a math to a building. It has to be simple enough, complicated enough. People write books about Hitchcock and the timing and the way the cuts work. There's just a math to it. Scott's a very elegant filmmaker. I feel like this script was even better than Sinister, and it's more mature filmmaking. He makes good movies. If you love acting, you want to be with serious filmmakers because it gives you a shot."
Anticipation has been high for The Black Phone since it was first announced that Hawke and Derrickson would be reuniting for the film after the success of Sinister. Despite its initial mixed reception, the film has enjoyed a major cult following in the decade since it hit theaters, holding the ranking of the scariest movie ever in a study. Sinister would ultimately find itself dethroned in the study by Shudder's 2020 screenlife horror pic Host, which holds a rare 100 percent approval rating from critics on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes.
As Hawke references in his explanation, The Black Phone appears to have a number of elements in its favor when pitted against Sinister. Following its debut at Fantastic Fest, critics were much more favorable in early Black Phone reviews when compared to the 2012 horror film, praising the faithfulness to Hill's source novel, Derrickson's more matured direction and Hawke's menacing performance as The Grabber, leaving many hopeful that Hawke and Derrickson's reunion has made for a more terrifying outing. Only time will tell where audiences sit on comparing the two films when The Black Phone hits theaters on June 24.
Source: SlashFilm
