Ethan Hawke's Black Phone Villain Perfectly Avoids A Michael Myers Mistake

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Warning! SPOILERS for The Black Phone.

The Black Phone successfully avoids a mistake made with Michael Myers in the Halloween franchise. The Black Phone features Ethan Hawke as The Grabber, a serial killer who abducts children and keeps them in his soundproofed basement. While The Black Phone is full of supernatural elements, The Grabber himself is just a disturbing and evil human being, akin to Michael Myers in the original Halloween.

Very little context is given for The Grabber and his origins in The Black Phone, shrouding the character in mystery. Other than seeing him be villainous and getting a sense of his unhinged state, audiences are left to wonder at what has made him the way he is. Michael Myers, in contrast, is given a fairly concrete background, but little explanation is given as to his motivations. In Halloween, the mystery surrounding him is more about what he wants and why he's so hard to kill. Michael Myers goes about the first Halloween as a recognizably human figure, with his past being revealed throughout the movie.

Related: Why The Black Phone's Reviews Are So Positive

While many timelines exist in the Halloween movies that depict different versions of the killer, there's no indication in the first film that Michael Myers is supernatural. He's made more terrifying by the idea that a villain need not be a demon or a monster to be dangerous, unsettling, and evil. The Black Phone keys in on this idea, making The Grabber an average joe, aside from his penchant for abducting and murdering children. Both The Grabber and Michael Myers are interesting horror villains, because they represent a more present and realistic fear than monsters or the supernatural: other people.