There's nothing quite like a good scare.
Most good horror movies have that one big shocking, frightful moment that overshadows all the others.
Jaws had the dismembered head popping out of the sunken ship. The Conjuring had the creepy hands clapping on the stairs. Final Destination had poor Terry cleaned up by the bus in the street.
And now The Black Phone, the latest Blumhouse horror from director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange), has a great jump scare that will see you struggling to stay in your seat.
The excellent new scary movie hits cinemas later this month, with a select few advanced screenings along the way to build up word of mouth.
Derrickson previously teamed up with The Black Phone star Ethan Hawke (Moon Knight) for the highly reviewed Sinister, which has been regarded as one of the scariest movies ever made.
While Sinister saw Hawke play the unwitting victim of crime, the tables are turned in The Black Phone, and he is most decidedly the bad guy.
Set in the late 1970s in a small, Stephen King-ian town, the film kicks off with a series of children going missing.
The local rumour mill attributes the disappearances to 'The Grabber', and kids say talking about him will put a target on your own back.
Our protagonist Finney says he doesn't believe in that superstition, but he doesn't want to talk about The Grabber just the same.
Unfortunately, that doesn't matter and the shy, bullied child becomes the next kid taken.
Hawke's Grabber is terrifying.
His face is either wholly or partially obscured by deeply disturbing masks for the vast majority of the film.
Sometimes the masks display a smiling face, and sometimes they're more, well, sinister.
The Grabber is reminiscent of real-life serial killers John Wayne Gacy and The Candyman (Dean Corll), with a hair-trigger temper and disconcertingly chirpy voice.
But even though Hawke makes for a memorable and frightening villain, it's his young counterpart Mason Thames as Finney who steals the film.
He brings a deeply-felt pain to his role. The son of an abusive, alcoholic father, Finney is tormented at home and by the bullies at school.
But he refuses to let The Grabber make him his next victim - and luckily, he's got some help on his side.
Finney is locked in a sound-proofed basement, with no one to hear him scream. But there is a disconnected black phone on the wall.
And when it rings, he can talk to The Grabber's now-dead previous victims. They can't tell him a lot, sometimes not even their own names, but they've each got one little piece of advice which, when assembled with the others, will complete the jigsaw of escaping from The Grabber's clutches.
Meanwhile, Finney's sister Gwen is doing her best to track her brother down - with some paranormal methods.
Gwen has psychic dreams, and is picking up clues as to her brother's whereabouts.
Youngster Madeleine McGraw plays Gwen with a lot of spunk and heart, and has some of the best lines in the film.
That's what makes The Black Phone so good - it has fantastic and unexpected scares, a top creep factor and brilliant character development.
Though that's hardly a surprise when you find out who penned the story the film is based on; Joe Hill, son of Stephen King.
