DEAD LINE
AFTER COLLABORATING ON Doctor Strange and the Sinister films, filmmaking partners C Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson decided to adapt the 2004 horror short story “The Black Phone” into a feature film, by combining the elements of the tale with Derrickson’s own traumatic childhood memories.
Written by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill (find it in his 2005 short story collection 20th Century Ghosts), it tells the story of a 13-year-old boy named John Finney who is kidnapped by a serial killer. When the Galesburg Grabber locks Finney inside his soundproof basement, the boy discovers a seemingly disconnected black phone, through which he’s somehow able to speak to the killer’s previous victims.
“One day in 2005, I entered a book store and found Joe Hill’s book of short stories with ‘The Black Phone’, not knowing who he was at the time,” says Derrickson, who co-produced and co-wrote the film with Cargill. “I read ‘The Black Phone’
