How Ethan Hawke Terrified One SFX Artist On Set Of New Movie
One of the effects designers behind the new Blumhouse horror film The Black Phone revealed that Ethan Hawke was terrifying even during his mask fitting. The Black Phone is adapted by Sinister co-writers Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill from a 2004 short story by Horns and NOS4A2 writer Joe Hill. Derrickson, who also directed Sinister as well as 2016's Doctor Strange, helmed the film as well, overseeing a cast that includes James Ransone, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, Mason Thames, Jacob Moran, Jordan Isaiah White, Brady Hepner, and Blumhouse stalwart Ethan Hawke, who has appeared in several of the production company's films including Sinister and The Purge.
In The Black Phone, Hawke plays The Grabber which is the nickname for a serial kidnapper who stalks the streets around the suburbs of Denver in 1978. After he abducts Finney (Thames), the young boy realizes that the phone in his makeshift prison cell can contact the spirits of the previous children that were murdered by The Grabber. Although The Grabber is terrifying in his own right, his power as a new iconic horror villain is increased substantially by the mask that he wears. Taking after Michael Myers from Halloween, the mask is a bone-white blank face, bearing horns, a sinister grin, and wide eye holes that let Hawke's performance shine through.
Related: Does The Black Phone Have An After Credits Scene?
Today, EW ran a piece speaking with members of the team behind the creation of The Grabber's terrifying mask. The mask, which was inspired by the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs, was designed by FX maestro Tom Savini (who provided genre-defining gore effects in films including 1978's Dawn of the Dead and 1980's Friday the 13th) and built by his business
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