The Black Phone Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

3. Not Enough Ethan Hawke

The marketing has quite understandably trained its focus on its single A-list actor, Ethan Hawke, who gives a wonderfully unsettling performance as the Grabber.

However, if you're expecting Hawke to have an especially substantial role in the film, prepare to be left disappointed.

While Hawke devours the screen every single second he's on it, his appearances throughout its 102 minutes are fairly sporadic: he's almost entirely absent from the first act, and disappears for long stretches of time during Finney's various phone calls.

All in all Hawke probably has around 20 minutes of screen time in the entire movie, and while that might be an effective approach when dealing with an effects-heavy supernatural creature, for a flesh-and-blood human antagonist it's a damn shame we don't get to spend more time with him.