The Black Phone (2021)

In 1978, a local serial child abductor and murderer, known only as "The Grabber", prowls the streets of a suburb in North Denver, Colorado. Finney Blake and his younger sister, Gwen, live in the area with their abusive, alcoholic father, Terrence, whose wife died by suicide after having a series of disturbing psychic dreams. Finney is frequently bullied and harassed at school, but his friend and classmate, Robin, fends off the bullies.

Having inherited her mother's ability, Gwen dreams about the Grabber's abduction of Bruce, a boy Finney knew from Little League. Police detectives Wright and Miller interview Gwen at school, believing she may know the Grabber. When Terrence learns about the questioning, he beats Gwen. Soon afterward, the Grabber abducts Robin and then Finney.

Finney awakens in a soundproofed basement with a disconnected black rotary dial telephone on one wall. It begins to ring on its own at times; Finney hears only static when he first answers it but then hears Bruce's voice telling him about a floor tile he can remove to dig an escape tunnel. Finney starts to dig, but the house's foundations are too deep for him to go beneath them.

The Grabber brings Finney a meal and leaves the basement door unlocked. As Finney is about to sneak out, he gets a call from Billy, another past victim. Billy warns Finney that the Grabber is waiting at the top of the basement stairs to beat him with a belt until he passes out if he tries to leave, as part of a cruel game. At Billy's suggestion, Finney uses a hidden cable to climb up to the basement window; however, his weight pulls out the grate covering the pane, leaving him with no way to reach it again.

As Gwen confides to Terrence about her dreams of Finney's abduction, Wright and Miller question an eccentric man named Max, who stays in the area with his brother and has shown great interest in the Grabber's crimes. Unbeknownst to him, Finney is being held in Max's basement, and the Grabber is actually his brother.

Finney receives a call from Griffin, a third victim, who gives him the combination to the lock securing the house's front door and tells him that the Grabber has fallen asleep. He sneaks out and unlocks the door, but the Grabber quickly recaptures Finney after his dog, Samson, barks to wake him. A fourth victim, a juvenile delinquent named Vance, calls to tell Finney he can break through a wall and into a freezer in the adjacent room. Finney does so but finds the freezer door locked. As Finney despairs over his fate, he receives one last call from Robin, who urges him to stand up for himself and fight back by packing the phone receiver with dirt to use as a bludgeon.

After seeing the Grabber's house in a vision, Gwen calls Wright and Miller to give them the address. The police rush to the house and find the bodies of the Grabber's victims buried in the basement. Meanwhile, Max realizes Finney is being held in the basement and rushes to free him, but the Grabber kills him with an axe. Upset that he had to kill his brother, the Grabber then attacks Finney, having decided to end his game. Finney uses the byproducts from his previous escape attempts to trap the Grabber in a pit he has dug, beats him with the receiver, and breaks his neck with the phone cord as his past victims taunt him.

Throwing a steak from the freezer to Samson as a distraction, Finney leaves the house, which turns out to be across the street from the one the police have raided. Terrence tearfully begs Finney and Gwen to forgive his earlier treatment of them. Sometime later, now viewed as a hero at school, a newly confident Finney sits next to his crush in class and says she can call him Finn.