In this episode of Movie Gumshoes, Jared and his overeager rookie partner Jonathan “Sourdough” Manno crack open the case file on The Black Phone, which Jonathan insists isn’t just a movie, but “evidence hiding in plain sight.” As they investigate the film, Jared lays out the facts: it’s a 2021 American supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson, co-written with C. Robert Cargill, and based on a short story by Joe Hill. The story follows Finney (Mason Thames), a kidnapped teen trapped by a masked child killer known as “the Grabber” (Ethan Hawke), who uses a mysterious disconnected phone to communicate with the killer’s past victims. Jonathan, of course, latches onto this immediately, convinced the Grabber’s patterns, psychological tactics, and even the idea of victims “reaching back” could connect to their real-life hunt for the Panty Face Killer back in Apache Junction. As Jared tries to keep things grounded by noting the film’s Blumhouse Productions backing and distribution by Universal Pictures, Jonathan is already building a conspiracy board linking fictional murders to real ones. By the end, Jared is forced to admit one unsettling truth: even if the ghosts aren’t real, the patterns might be, and that’s enough to keep their investigation dangerously alive.