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40 free The Black Phone trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Black Phone started as a short story by Joe Hill, sat on Scott Derrickson's shelf for years while he made Sinister and Doctor Strange, and finally became a 2021 Blumhouse hit built out of the director's own memories of a violent 1970s Denver childhood. This The Black Phone trivia quiz covers the film, the story and the 2025 sequel: Finney and Gwen Blake, the Grabber and his three-piece mask, the ghost callers Bruce, Billy, Griffin, Vance and Robin, Gwen's dreams, Max, Samson the dog, and the return trip to Alpine Lake Camp. Easy questions ask who plays the Grabber and what the phone is; harder ones ask which special-effects legend built the masks, what the shoot's fake title was, which state's tax credit helped pay for it, and which video game the Grabber joined in 2025. Black Phone 2 gets a full section, from Ernesto to Lake Maru. Every answer has been checked against a source and each question shows its citation and a short explanation once you answer. Answer it. It's for you.
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Q 01Who directed The Black Phone?
Scott Derrickson
Scott Derrickson directed The Black Phone and co-wrote it with C. Robert Cargill, his writing partner on earlier horror films, after leaving a Marvel sequel over creative differences.
Q 02The film is based on a 2004 short story by which author?
Joe Hill
Joe Hill, author of Horns and NOS4A2, first published the story in 2004 and writes under a shortened form of his middle name, Hillström, to succeed on his own merits.
Q 03In which short-story collection did 'The Black Phone' first appear?
20th Century Ghosts
The story was collected in 20th Century Ghosts, the author's 2005 debut collection, which won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection.
Q 04Which actor plays the masked child-killer known as the Grabber?
Ethan Hawke
Ethan Hawke plays the Grabber; long wary of villain roles for fear of typecasting, he was won over by the mask concept and his earlier collaboration with the director.
Q 05Who plays Finney Blake, in his film debut?
Mason Thames
Mason Thames, previously seen on the TV series For All Mankind, makes his feature film debut as Finney Blake and later played Hiccup in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon.
Q 06Which actress plays Finney's psychic younger sister Gwen?
Madeleine McGraw
Madeleine McGraw plays Gwen, the psychic younger sister; she had starred in Disney Channel's Secrets of Sulphur Springs and voiced Bonnie in Toy Story 4.
Q 07In which year and city is the film set?
1978, North Denver
The film is set in 1978, North Denver; the director grew up there and drew on the everyday violence of his working-class neighbourhood.
Q 08How did Finney and Gwen's mother die?
By suicide after disturbing psychic dreams
The film says she died 'By suicide after disturbing psychic dreams': their father explains she heard and saw things, and he beats Gwen for fear her dreams lead the same way.
Q 09Which friend of Finney's fends off the school bullies before being abducted himself?
Robin
His final call from the phone tells Finney to fight back by packing the receiver with dirt.
Q 10What is the first ghost caller Bruce's advice to Finney?
Remove a floor tile and dig a tunnel
Bruce's advice is to 'Remove a floor tile and dig a tunnel'; the foundations prove too deep, but the pit Finney digs becomes the trap that brings the Grabber down.
Q 11When the Grabber leaves the basement door unlocked, what does Billy warn is really happening?
The killer waits upstairs to beat him with a belt
Billy warns that 'The killer waits upstairs to beat him with a belt' as part of the Grabber's 'naughty boy' game, and instead points Finney to the cable hidden in the wall for reaching the window.
Q 12What is the name of the eccentric man the detectives question, who turns out to be living in the Grabber's house?
Max
Max, played by James Ransone, is the Grabber's cocaine-fuelled amateur-sleuth brother; when he finally realises the truth, the Grabber kills him with an axe.
Q 13What is the name of the Grabber's dog, whose barking foils one escape?
Q 21Roughly what was the film's production budget?
$16–18 million
The budget was about $16–18 million; the film went on to earn close to ten times that at the worldwide box office.
Q 22In what film format were Gwen's dream sequences shot?
Super 8
Gwen's dreams were shot on Super 8 film, a grainy home-movie format the director had also used for the found-footage reels in his earlier horror work.
Q 23Cinematographer Brett Jutkiewicz had just finished which 2022 horror film when he got the script?
Scream
Scream (2022) was Jutkiewicz's most recent shoot; he had also photographed Ready or Not, the 2019 horror-comedy from the same directing team.
Samson
The Grabber's dog is Samson; his barking rouses the Grabber during Finney's attempt to work the front-door lock combination a ghost caller gave him.
Q 14Which ghost caller, a juvenile delinquent, tells Finney to break through to a freezer?
Vance
Vance, the hot-tempered delinquent, tells Finney to smash through the wall with the toilet-tank lid into a storage room holding a freezer, but that room's door is locked too.
Q 15How does Finney finally kill the Grabber?
He breaks his neck with the phone cord
'He breaks his neck with the phone cord' after luring the Grabber into the pit and beating him with the dirt-packed receiver while the dead boys' voices taunt the killer through the phone.
Q 16Where does the Grabber's house turn out to be, relative to the house the police raid?
Directly across the street
The Grabber's house is 'Directly across the street': Gwen's vision sent the police to the house where the bodies were buried while the killer held Finney a few yards away.
Q 17What does Finney tell his crush she can call him in the final scene?
Finn
Now regarded as a hero at school, he takes the seat next to her with new confidence.
Q 18Which horror-focused production company produced The Black Phone?
Blumhouse
Blumhouse, the horror company founded by Jason Blum, produced the film alongside the filmmakers' own Crooked Highway, with Universal Pictures distributing.
Q 19Which Marvel film did Derrickson leave before returning to The Black Phone?
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Derrickson left Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in January 2020 over creative differences; he had directed the first Doctor Strange, and Sam Raimi took over the sequel.
Q 20In which North Carolina city was the film shot in early 2021?
Wilmington
Filming took place in Wilmington, where EUE/Screen Gems Studios housed the basement sets; the shoot ran under a fake title in February and March 2021.
Q 24Which special-effects legend co-founded the studio that built the Grabber's masks?
Tom Savini
Tom Savini, the makeup-effects veteran behind Dawn of the Dead, co-founded Callosum Studios with Jason Baker, which designed and built the Grabber's masks.
Q 25Who composed the synthesizer-heavy score?
Mark Korven
Mark Korven, the Canadian composer of The Witch and The Lighthouse, wrote the score, blending synthesizers with scraped and struck acoustic textures.
Q 26At which festival did the film premiere in September 2021?
Fantastic Fest
The film premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin on 25 September 2021, nine months before its delayed June 2022 theatrical release.
Q 27What was the tagline on the theatrical poster?
Never talk to strangers
The poster's tagline was 'Never talk to strangers', a play on the childhood warning that the film's masked kidnapper turns deadly.
Q 28How much did The Black Phone gross worldwide?
$161.4m
The Black Phone grossed $161.4m worldwide, about $90 million of it in the United States and Canada, on a budget under $20 million.
Q 29Derrickson's short 'Dreamkill', set in the Black Phone universe, appears in which anthology film?
V/H/S/85
'Dreamkill' is Derrickson's segment of V/H/S/85, the 2023 entry in the found-footage anthology series, about videotapes showing murders before they happen in 1985.
Q 30In which year is Black Phone 2 set?
1982
Black Phone 2 is set in 1982, four years after the original, as Gwen begins dreaming about murders committed at a camp decades earlier.