Universal Pictures
By Valerie Ettenhofer/June 17, 2022 1:13 pm EST
It’s no wonder, then, that ahead of its release, “The Black Phone” is garnering comparisons to one of the most beloved adolescent stories out there. In an interview with director Scott Derrickson, /Film’s Jacob Hall asked the filmmaker about the common ground the film shares with coming-of-age movies. Derrickson revealed that Stephen King, father of “The Black Phone” author Hill and modern master of horror, came up with an apt comparison for the tonally complex story.
A horror and coming-of-age hybrid
Columbia Pictures
“I felt that the heart and soul and emotion of the movie would be reliant upon how well I could establish, not just their individual characters, but the bond between the two of them, and make the audience really root for their connection, and that would sustain the emotion of the movie.”
Derrickson, who co-wrote “The Black Phone” adaptation with C. Robert Cargill, says he took some of the memories he’d been grappling with from his own childhood and merged them with Hill’s story to create something powerful. Although the filmmaker acknowledges that “The Black Phone” is definitely a horror film, he says it’s also a coming-of-age film based around “childhood trauma and the resilience of children.”
“The Black Phone” will hit theaters June 24, 2022.
