The Black Phone is a 2021 American supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson from a screenplay he wrote with C. Robert Cargill, based on the 2004 short story "20th Century Ghosts: The Black Phone" by Joe Hill. It is the first installment in the Black Phone franchise. It stars Mason Thames as Finney, a teenage boy abducted by a serial child killer known colloquially as the Grabber. When Finney encounters a mystical black rotary phone in captivity, he uses it to plot his escape by communicating with the ghosts of the Grabber's slain victims. Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, and James Ransone also feature in the principal cast. Derrickson and Cargill produced The Black Phone in association with Blumhouse Productions CEO Jason Blum. Universal Pictures oversaw the film's commercial distribution, and funding was sourced through a pact with Blumhouse and tax subsidies from the North Carolina state government.