Obsession is weird, right? Taken too far in one direction, it creates dogged saviors. But too far in the other way breeds psychos and killers. Like Alfred Hitchcock, Scott Derrickson seems intimately curious about people driven by their inability to let things go. Ethan Hawke plays two sides of this coin, first in Sinister and then in Derrickson’s latest flick, The Black Phone.
Obviously, anyone who watched a trailer for either film understands how different these two portrayals are. One is an author who writes about serial killers fearing he’s a poser. The other is a serial killer posing as a magician. Ironically, what he lacks in magician skills, he more than makes up for in kidnapping ability. But that’s also the point. Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill paint pictures of overly meticulous men. They have their moves down to a science, ultimately leading to their downfalls. This is slightly different for a genre that often says obsession is appropriate for protagonists. When it comes to the villains, they usually meet their final curtain when they become less obsessive and a lot sloppier. Derrickson’s two films make a completely opposite argument.
Sinister and The Black Phone illustrate the horrors of being intensely focused, and the bad things that happen when someone is plagued with an inability to move forward.
Every horror movie has a moment when the audience, the people in the film, and even the theater ushers beg a lead character to stop. Everyone sees the ensuing train wreck except the most critical person in the room. It’s one thing when it’s because a character refuses to run anymore, like Laurie Strode in Halloween H20 and Halloween (2018), or wants some well-deserved vengeance, like Chris in Get Out. But most of the time, it’s sheer curiosity; these characters can’t help themselves or anyone around them because they never heard the saying about curiosity and cats.
All those traits are different than an obsession. While Laurie, Sidney, Chris, and others like them have a line, that line is etched in chalk for someone like Ellison Oswalt in Sinister.
Oswalt goes too far because he is consumed with his own success. The man knowingly moved his family into a house where people died just so he could be in the right setting and follow the trail. Oswalt is not only chasing a killer but his past as well. He spends nights watching snuff films spliced with interviews from when he was the hottest young author in town. He drinks, too, fueling the potent cocktail of nostalgia, fear, regret, and hubris. Horror rarely shows mercy to anyone who is, unfortunately, their own worst enemy. This goes beyond violating sacred “rules” of the genre, like saying, “I’ll be right back,” and walking alone into a darkened hallway. Obsessed characters, specifically the selfish ones, plant the genre firmly in its morality tale roots.
Derrickson and Cargill make Sinister‘s Oswalt a sympathetic man but never let him off the hook for his sins. Putting his family at risk and lying to them while pretending it’s for some greater good other than his bank account is a Yokozuna-sized sin. And the deeper he goes down the rabbit hole, the more obvious it becomes just how far he’s willing to go to satisfy his compulsion. Alice had her limits. And she didn’t need to get drugged and watch her family get slaughtered to discover her breaking point.
On the flip side, there’s The Grabber. With intentions to make this part as spoiler-free as humanly possible, Hawke’s character in The Black Phone is obsessed as well but for his own mysterious reasons. Some horror fans prefer a boogeyman with secret intentions. In contrast, others want all the motivation laid out before them. The Grabber is a better character because of the secrecy. His obsession is hard to understand, probably a good thing since most of us don’t want to relate to a child killer. Still, it’s also puzzling why he makes certain moves in the film. Hawke, however, plays The Grabber with the same curiosity that he gave Ellison. He asks questions, researches, and is genuinely puzzled at his circumstances. There’s something about his latest victim that he can’t shake and needs to understand. The Grabber isn’t the first horror predator who took too much interest in his prey. Unlike Hannibal Lecter or Norman Bates, his obsession isn’t romanticized or analyzed. It truly is horrific in that there is no excuse.
The Grabber is driven by the fact that in this world, he can get away with evil things. So why not do it?
That penchant for evil motivates his preoccupation with routine. It’s not just about kidnapping kids; there’s an order to everything he does. The way he kidnaps them, what he does once they’re in his clutches, and the steps he follows are all part of a regiment. If just one of those aspects gets thrown off by even the slightest degree, his world folds quicker than origami. The Black Phone explores how obsession warps the mind and the aftermath of something—or someone—dropping a cherry bomb on top of those best-laid plans. Especially when said plans aren’t for the nicest purposes.
Good guys and ladies in horror, like Oswalt, have a line. Yes, Oswalt went too far in Sinister, but he pulled back. Was it too late? Of course, it was. But he still caught the reins before the entire carriage went over the cliff. Villains like The Grabber don’t have lines. They keep pushing until the rules break in their favor because they’re not bound by something as pesky as a conscience. Neither Sinister nor The Black Phone says one is better than the other. Both men at the center of their respective films face the consequences due to an unrelenting mindset. Limits are essential whether you’re the story’s hero or the villain twirling your mustache beneath a mask. The horror characters who survive multiple tales are the ones who find theirs.
The ones who don’t? Well, there’s a child out there waiting to make their lives a living hell.
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