8 Horror Movies That Send Terror Through Old-School Phone Lines

The new Black Phone 2 trailer centers on a phone booth that allows the Grabber—who seemingly met his end in the first Black Phone movie—to hiss new threats at his intended prey. That’s a shade more sinister than how the phone was used in the 2021 original, when a mysterious land line allowed the dead to impart survival advice to the living. But “scary phone calls” are a time-honored horror tradition (check out io9’s taxonomy here!). Forget cell phones, FaceTime, and internet ghosts: today we’re looking at 10 memorable showcases of land-line terror brought to the screen. Scream Opening the film with a faux “wrong number” that’s actually a killer’s way of taunting his next victim is scary; having the killer get all meta and steer the conversation toward favorite horror movies is even scarier; having the dying victim’s mother pick up the extension and hear her daughter gasping her last breath is the scariest. Scream hit theaters in 1996, long before cellphones became ubiquitous, and wh ... Read full article.