Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. Features

5 great horror movies like The Black Phone

By

Abduction is a pretty common trope in the horror genre. Movies like The Black Phone revolves around a serial killer who kidnaps kids, but with a supernatural twist. The movie, which stars Ethan Hawke, may wind up being a great new entry in the horror canon, but for now, we’re looking back at some recent movies that have something in common with The Black Phone. If you’re looking for something similar to put on next, look no further.

Sinister (2012)

Sinister
53%
6.8/10
110m
Genre
Horror, Thriller, Mystery
Stars
Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Vincent D'Onofrio
Directed by
Scott Derrickson
Watch on Peacock
Before checking out The Black Phone, it might make sense to check out Black Phone director Scott Derrickson’s other collaboration with star Ethan Hawke, 2012’s Sinister. The film tells the story of a man who moves his family into a supposedly haunted house in order to write a book about his experiences in the house. Thanks to the effective use of young actors, Sinister is a deeply chilling story of one man who is confident in his worldview and finds that worldview totally upended. It’s one of the scariest horror movies of the 21st century, and Hawke’s performance is a perfect anchor for all of the paranormal activity on display.
Sinister Official Trailer #1 (2012) - Ethan Hawke Horror Movie HD
Recommended Videos

It (2017)

It
69%
7.3/10
135m
Genre
Horror, Fantasy
Stars
Jaeden Martell, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis
Directed by
Andy Muschietti
Watch on Netflix
It is evocative of shows like Stranger Things and even vintage Steven Spielberg, but the 2017 movie works because it is totally focused on the kids who are trying to rid their town of the menace that has infected it. The Black Phone is dealing with a more everyday evil than It, but the movies are united in their decision to make children central to the story they’re telling. Plenty of horror movies choose not to foreground kids for the simple reason that they can be hard to work with, but truly great horror movies know that a child’s terror can be scarier than almost anything else you see on screen.
IT - Official Trailer 1

Fresh (2022)

Fresh
67%
6.7/10
114m
Genre
Horror, Thriller
Stars
Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jonica T. Gibbs
Directed by
Mimi Cave
Watch on Hulu
A fun, frothy horror-comedy, Fresh tells the story of a young woman who is kidnapped by a man who wants to sell off her body’s meat to weird freaks who want to eat young women. It’s a pretty blunt metaphor, and the movie doesn’t deploy it all that subtly, but the performances at the film’s center from Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan more than make up for any faults in the script — and the movie’s climax is suitably thrilling and triumphant. Many of the movies on this list are relatively downbeat, even if they end well, but Fresh is remarkably light in spite of the material it’s dealing with.
Fresh | Official Trailer | Hulu

Split (2016)

Split
62%
7.3/10
117m
Genre
Horror, Thriller
Stars
James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley
Directed by
M. Night Shyamalan
Watch on Amazon
M. Night Shyamalan’s pulpy ode to B-movie thrillers, Split features thematic content that may not be the most subtle, but its story of three girls who are abducted by a man with 23 distinct personalities is nonetheless thoroughly compelling. Split isn’t a horror movie, exactly, but it certainly has its chilling moments, and it proves to be thrilling at all the right moments. Shyamalan is a stylish director, and even when his scripts don’t totally measure up to his craft, he knows how to create an effective moment — and he creates plenty of them over the course of Split. 

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

10 Cloverfield Lane
76%
7.2/10
104m
Genre
Thriller, Science Fiction, Drama, Horror
Stars
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr.
Directed by
Dan Trachtenberg
Watch on Amazon
The Black Phone‘s central narrative is all about escaping from abduction, and that’s what it has in common with 10 Cloverfield Lane. This movie, which is set in the same universe as 2008’s Cloverfield, follows a young woman who finds herself holed up in an underground bunker with two men, one roughly her age and another who is significantly older. 10 Cloverfield Lane‘s creeping sense of dread is palpable, and the movie eventually shifts into a full-on horror movie. It may technically be set in the world of Cloverfield, but this movie has plenty in common with much more traditional horror fare.
10 CLOVERFIELD LANE | Official Trailer

Editors' Recommendations

Movie images and data from:
Topics
Joe Allen
Joe Allen
Writer
Joe Allen is a freelance writer based in upstate New York focused on movies and TV.
Is Insidious a better horror movie franchise than The Conjuring?
insidious vs the conjuring which one is better horror movie franchise

In an era when franchises are everywhere, two of the most under-discussed come from a very similar creative team. Insidious and The Conjuring have been two of the most dominant horror franchises of the last decade, and both franchises spring originally from director James Wan, who directed the first installment of both franchises.

Wan, who has since gone on to make films like Aquaman and Malignant, is one of the more creative minds working on major movies in Hollywood these days, and Insidious and The Conjuring so the promise he's always had as a director.

Read more
All The Purge movies, ranked from worst to best
Two intruders with masks on hold up weapons in The Purge.

In 2013, James DeMonaco wrote and directed The Purge, an action horror film with an interesting question at the center of its premise: what if crime was legal? For 12 hours, all crime is legal, including murder, and all emergency services are suspended. Set in a dystopian future, The Purge depicts a wealthy family fighting to defend themselves against a group of sadistic murderers on Purge Night.

The Purge exploded at the box office, making an impressive $89 million against a $3 million budget. The massive success of The Purge spawned four sequels and two seasons of a television show. The film also started the partnership between Jason Blum and Blumhouse Productions with Universal Pictures, a relationship that still lasts in 2023. To commemorate the 10th anniversary, we ranked The Purge movies from worst to best, which you can find below.
5. The Forever Purge (2021)

Read more
Irrational horror: How Skinamarink, The Outwaters, and Enys Men remystify the genre
A dying woman crawls across a desert in an upside down shot

"What the hell is going on?" someone blurts out in a half-full AMC auditorium. Scattered chuckles reassure him he's not alone in his bewilderment. It's a chilly January evening in Chicago, and a few dozen of us have come out to see Skinamarink, a DIY horror movie about a pair of children haunted by an evil presence that's reshaped the very layout of their home. Can any of us say with any certainty what the hell is going on in Kyle Edward Ball's shoestring oddity, which rode a wave of viral TikTok buzz from the darkest reaches of the Canadian suburbs to theaters across America? It's awfully experimental and radically uncommercial for a movie you can watch on a multiplex screen, Puss in Boots playing next door.

A couple of weeks later, along comes The Outwaters, a found-footage horror movie about some artists who get more than they bargained for shooting a music video in the Mojave Desert. After an hour-plus of extremely mundane vérité setup, writer-director-star Robbie Banfitch plunges us into pure psychedelic lunacy, splintering time and space through the lens of a roving, spinning handheld camera. Like Skinamarink, the film makes The Blair Witch Project look narratively conventional by comparison. What the hell is going on here?

Read more