Ahead of the premiere of 'The Black Phone,' we spoke with the filmmaker about his fondness for filtering terror through a Super 8 lens, the creation and design of his killer’s mask, and whether the horror genre offers more freedom than franchise filmmaking
’s signature element is unquestionably The Grabber’s mask, which was crafted by Tom Savini and Jason Baker. How did the design come about?
That became, conceptually, very exciting to me. Then it became a smile mask, a frown mask, and a mask with no mouth, with no expression—all split in half. I came up with that concept, and I referenced for Tom Savinifor the grimace of the smile mask, and that was really it. I gave all that not only to Tom but to five different effects companies that are experts in mask-making, Tom being the oldest and the living legend that he is.
Getting him to do the movie, I just called him and said, I’ve got a new script and I’d love for you to play the villain. And I said, you probably won’t want to, because he’s a sadistic child killer, and he’s in a mask the whole time, so we won’t see your face. He told me, I probably won’t do it, because I don’t really play villains. He said it’s got to be some real Jack Nicholson-in-thing if I’m going to do it, but send me the script and I’ll read it right away.
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