HNow, would you like to turn a short story about a sadistic child murderer into a horrifying but hopeful seijin-shiki movie? For Scott Derrickson, he uses his own traumatic childhood as an inspiration.
Derrickson's latest movieBlack Phoneis based onJoe Hill's short story of the same nameand is a serial killer known as Finney (Mason Thames), Grabber. Kidnapped by a murderer (Ethan Hawke, his first villain). In the room where Finney was captured, he found a mysterious black phone. It allows him to communicate with other young victims of masked kidnappers from far away, hoping to bring it to life. When Derrickson first read Hill's 2007 story, he said that the author, who is also the son ofStephen King, "combined the story of a serial killer with the story of a ghost." I was impressed by the fact that I made something with a sympathetic point. ”Marvel'sDoctor Strangedirector told TIME.
For nearly a decade, Delixon realized that he could extend a 30-page story to full-length functionality using his own junior high school experience growing up in Denver, Colorado in the late 1970s. It was later. .. Delixon, the youngest of thirteen boys who lived in his block where he grew up, recalls ubiquitous violence. "Bullying was constant," he says. "But the worst wasn't." He remembers his friend appearing to play with "the red bleeding welt behind his feet." The boy's dad whisked him with an extension cord. "We are all," Wow, hey. Bummer. "You know. And we went and played Nerf football, "he says. "It was just a neighborhood. That's right."
Black Phonedeals with trauma to children, but Derrickson doesn't want to go too far into violence. I knew. “When I was a kid, there were things that were too dark to fit in,” he says. "I think the audience must be sensitive to what the audience can tolerate, without actually turning the movie itself off or on." Instead, he is the true horror of his own adolescence through a young character. I wanted to show the resilience of the children by confronting some. “For me, making these films has always been a cathartic experience,” he says. "It's always a way to get rid of anxiety and fear, and never create it."
Below, Derrickson said that the child's trauma, anti-nostalgia, and Ethan Hawke's voice, Explain how theBlack Phonehelped turn it into one of the most horrifying movies of the year
Nostalgia-free 70s Slowback
The emotion that Derrickson most associates with as a child is fear. "I've been treated for three years and I've been talking almost exclusively about my childhood and the more extreme things I've experienced," he says. The details of The Black Phone are based on the living experience of a director who grew up in North Denver. Wire mesh fences, overcast skies, violence inside and outside the house. Derrickson wanted those intimate details to feel universal. “Universality as a child is traumatic for everyone,” he says. "It's difficult for everyone. It's really worth looking at it."
In showing the story of the 1970s, Delixon fought the urge to worship that era. .. "Bob Dylan said'nostalgia is dead', and I tend to agree with that," he says. Instead, he referred to the production company founded bySteven Spielbergand pulled out what he called "reverse ambilin" in the supernatural horror films,. The way I look back on prepuberty is quite different from what I do.
The black phoneis certainlyE.T., Spielberg's original 1982 science fiction movie. This was the director's way of overcoming the divorce of his parents. How to take into account Derrickson's childhood trauma is far less embraced. He literally forces Finney to fight for his life by turning a disconnected phone into a long-awaited lifeline. This shows that he is stronger and smarter than the kidnapper. "It's really worth going back and seeing what you're probably denying about your experience and how it affected you," he says. "It was very free and very cathartic to be able to lead it to something positive."
Ethan Hawke Mason Thames in'The Black Phone'
Fred Norris / Universal Studios
Cast a villain with a killer voice
Hill's original story villain was at least 33 young men and boys in the 1960s and 70s. Was modeled after the serial killerJohn Wayne Gacywho raped, tortured, and killed. The first draft of theBlack Phonescript, written by Derrickson in six weeks, included a clown killer aimed at referring to Gacy, who regularly acted as a child's clown. "Joe [Hill] read the script before anyone else, andit was just," says Delixon. "He first said," Grabber can't be a clown. " Hill suggested instead turning him into a "classic old-style magician." This allowed Delixon to rethink the look of the bad guys in the movie.
"There was no mask in Joe's story, but I liked the idea that Grabber wore a mask and couldn't be himself without covering his face," he said. 90} Say about Tom Savini-a mask designed in the movie. When Derrickson made that decision, he realized that he needed an actor with a "unique voice that could penetrate the mask." His first thought was Ethan Hawke, who starred in hishis 2012 horror filmSinister,, which marked the role of the actor's first horrifying film. “I feel like he's not being fully utilized as a voice actor,” says the director. "I don't know why he doesn't do expensive commercials and become a Pixar movie leader."
Hawk didn't want to play a villain, but Delixon was a masked psychopath. I knew that I would do something completely original, fearless. And he was right. "I remember what he told me when Ethan saw the mask." These are very scary and very effective. It's great because you can get the mask to do the mask work. "Hawk's version. This villain will be completely unexpected and undisturbed. "He really buries his mood behind the mask, and for me there's almost some sort of multiple personality disorder," says Delixon.
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