Scott Derrickson’s effective but flaky retro thriller does a phenomenal job of combining 70’s era small town paranoia and the supernatural, all with a touch of his “snuff” film 8mm tricks first employed in Sinister. It just finds itself skirting too far around it’s subject and narratively crumbling before it reaches the finishing line.
Set in 1978 Denver, The Black Phone rotates around a brother and sister who come from a broken home, a desist mum who suffered from mental…