Film Review – Mr. Harrigan’s Phone

“Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” was originally presented as a novella from Stephen King, included in his 2020 collection, “If It Bleeds.” Continuing its interest in bringing most offerings from the writer to the screen, Hollywood attempts to expand and deepen the source material for a feature-length examination of tech-based chills, with writer/director John Lee Hancock (“The Little Things,” “The Highwaymen”) working to transform King’s brief understanding of confusion into something potentially more substantial while retaining the author’s sense of the macabre and the unreal. Expectations are in place for a terrifying picture, but “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” isn’t that type of viewing experience, and Hancock doesn’t force the story into awkward genre positions. He delivers a gentler sense of concern with the endeavor, trying to match King’s imagination with technophobia commentary, more attentive to characterization than the development of any fear factor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com