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The 1980s was a pivotal time for horror fiction, especially for young adults. As Grady Hendrix wrote in Paperbacks From Hell , this was the decade where “horror hit its stride with a hungry teenage audience.” Dell Publishing’s own part in the prevailing trend included Twilight: Where Darkness Begins, a collection of self-contained books that he lped pave the way for Fear Street and other similar series. Multiple authors contributed to Twilight between ’82 and ’87, and Joseph Trainor was one of the few who wrote more than one book. In the first of Trainor’s two offerings, an unrelenting evil rises from a lake and targets a wealthy family.
Watery Grave does something uncommon in the world of YA horror; the story is set in a real place as opposed to a fictional (and creepily named) town. Nevertheless, it is safe to say the following events never happened in Duluth, Minnesota. The story kicks off with 16-year-old Julie Monroe sneaking back into school after cutting class with her two best friends, Cheryl and Debbie Cowan. Truancy is out of character for a student like Julie, but the dean of women is not lenient. W hile stuck in after-school detention with English teacher Miss Joan Cowan, Cheryl and Debbie’s cousin, something weird and frightening happens to Julie. Sadly for the main character, her terror has only just begun.
In detention, the pages of Julie’s Spanish textbook go blank, with only one word left behind in big red letters: LAVINIA. The mysterious word then turns to blood and bleeds all over Julie. She soon comes to her senses and, like Joan and the other students present, starts to question her state of mind. This sinister daydream reeks of a Freddy Krueger-like boogeyman’s doing, although Watery Grave predates A Nightmare on Elm Street by a year.
She suddenly realized what it was. “Blood!”
There is no readily available information about Joseph Trainor — are they using a pseudonym here, and/or were these Twilight books their only published works? — but it is clear from the writing that the author is at least familiar with Duluth as well as deep diving. As other characters are introduced, Watery Grave becomes a partial tour guide of the port city. Julie and her friends get lost in the fog after shopping in the Miller Hill district, while boyfriend Matt Sinclair goes diving for a sunken ship off the lakeside shore of Park Point. This near constant name dropping of locations is likely appealing to Duluthians, whereas outsiders will be overwhelmed. To help keep it simple, the most significant places are around the lake.
The story’s first victim, Cheryl, somehow drowns on land while inside her own car. The coroner also determines she has been dead for over a month. This is clearly not the case since Cheryl died during Julie’s first encounter with a menacing but handsome man in a peacoat. He rolled in with the ominous fog, then quickly disappeared into the lake. Right now Julie is unsure if the stranger means her harm, or if he had anything to do with Cheryl’s death. Based on the family feud at Cheryl’s wake, though, the current Cowan patriarch knows more than he is letting on. The ghoulish tales Victor Cowan grew up with are turning out to be true.
Julie is the book’s ostensible main character, yet Matt receives a good amount of solo scenes. He works as a diver along with his older brother at the harbor, and one of their paid dives reveals a 300-foot interlake steamship. To his horror, however, the long-lost ship is called Lavinia . Matt originally dismissed Julie’s detention daymare, but too much evidence is piling up. A supposed creature aboard the Lavinia wreck in addition to emerging local lore now makes Julie’s boyfriend a bonafide believer. Further complicating the situation is the fact that the phantom ship went down on June 7, 1884. And when did Matt and his brother spot the Lavinia in the present day? June 7, of course.
A vein pulsed at the wrist in obscene parody of human life.
As it turns out, Lavinia is both the name of a ship and a real person. The Lavinia belonged to an immigrant and skipper, Gregory Nix, whose body was never found after tragedy befell him, his crew, and his steamer in 1884. The reported cause of the accident was a glitch at the lighthouse. Nix was also a rival of Jeremiah Cowan, Cheryl and Debbie’s great-grandfather. As for Lavinia Tate, she was courted by both Jeremiah and Gregory. Once Nix was out of the picture and her family’s business was going under, Lavinia married Cowan despite her feelings. Their marriage was not a happy one, and Lavinia died not too long after giving birth to a daughter, Belle.
Jeremiah Cowan acquired his fortune through lies and dirty pool, and his immortal tormentor refuses to let his descendants off scot free. Unfortunately, the daughters in the Cowan line are the ones being unduly punished; every thirty-three years since June 7, 1884, a daughter is fated to die in this convoluted revenge play. The Cowan curse is a consequence of Jeremiah’s laundry list of offenses, with the least egregious misdeed being the theft of Gregory’s valuable cargo of limestone stored on the sunken Lavinia . The greatest wrongdoing is Jeremiah tampering with Duluth’s lighthouse all those years ago.
Now as a general rule in these kinds of stories, psychic visions are hardly ever random. They happen to someone for a reason. And for Julie, her unearthly insight is really a past life bubbling to the surface; she is the reincarnation of Lavinia Tate. And the man in the peacoat who has been shadowing Julie is none other than Gregory Nix. She mistakenly believes he has no evil intentions toward her or Lavinia because his hatred is pointed at the Cowans. Under the impression she is safe, Julie spends her time protecting the remaining Cowan daughters, Debbie and her cousin Joan. What Julie failed to consider is the possibility of Nix doing everything in his power to keep the one who got away.
The creature’s eyes were jet-black slits, its mouth that of a fish.
Had Joseph Trainor’s book stayed the course and made the antagonist a mere ghost, Watery Grave would have been less memorable. Instead, the story draws from Great Lakes mythology when explaining Gregory Nix’s true form. It is Matt who first comes upon the Manitou Niba Nibais at the museum. This bit of information was shoehorned in, so presumably it was important in the long run. The Manitou Niba Nibais is an Indigenous creature who is likened to mermen and other European water-folk. This alleged God of Lake Superior is said to “whistle up a storm and capsize” any boat that did not offer him a gift. By the end, Trainor has conflated different folktales and mixed up kelpies, nixies (Nix), and Manitou Niba Nibais. This will annoy ardent cryptozoologists and folklorists, but the less informed will welcome the novelty of a killer merman.
When it seems like Watery Grave is fleecing its readers and rehashing the 1980 film The Fog , Trainor throws in a fistful of elements to help singularize the book. Soul transmigration, a supernatural love triangle and, most of all, a water cryptid all keep this novel afloat and never boring. It is no wonder why fans of Twilight: Where Darkness Begins rank this aquatic-horror entry so highly.
There was a time when the young-adult section of bookstores was overflowing with horror and suspense. These books were easily identified by their flashy fonts and garish cover art. This notable subgenre of YA fiction thrived in the ’80s, peaked in the ’90s, and then finally came to an end in the early ’00s. YA horror of this kind is indeed a thing of the past, but the stories live on at Buried in a Book. This recurring column reflects on the nostalgic novels still haunting readers decades later.
Paul Lê is a Texas-based freelance film journalist, critic, and columnist who specializes in horror, tokusatsu, and international cinema.
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Joe Hill’s darkest short story comes to the big screen in Scott Derrickson’s latest film, The Black Phone. Derrickson reunites with Sinister co-writer C. Robert Cargill and star Ethan Hawke to expand and adapt the 7th story in Hill’s award winning collection “20th Century Ghosts.”
Finney (Mason Thames) is a 13-year old boy struggling to dodge the bullies at school and an alcoholic father at home. His only ally is his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) who may or may not have inherited a psychic talent from her late mother. When Finney is dragged into a sinister van by a part-time magician and full-time child murderer known as The Grabber (Hawke), he winds up in a basement cell containing only a dirty mattress and a mysterious black phone. Finney begins receiving calls on the broken device from the Grabber’s previous victims giving him encouragement and clues to survive his awful predicament.
At just nineteen pages, Hill’s original tale is lean and mean, beginning with Finney’s abduction and otherwise taking place entirely within the Grabber’s basement. The reader stays with the frightened boy through the duration of the story, creating a terrifying feeling of claustrophobia and helplessness. In an interview with /Film , Hill said, “When I wrote it, I could feel it struggling to become a novel.” Hill envisioned additional layers of the story, including more victims and calls, but says he “lacked the confidence to write it as a novel.” Hill’s entire story is present in the film adaptation including some exchanges pulled word for word from the original text. But as the author told Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting , “that’s only about 40 minutes of the film,” presenting Derrickson and Cargill with the challenge of creating the longer story Hill originally intended to write.
The film begins with these additions, what Hill describes as a “deeply autobiographical thread about life in the 1970s in the Midwest.” Finney meets future victim Bruce (Tristan Pravong) as the two boys square off on the baseball field. Another future victim named Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora) defends Finney from school bullies. But the majority of Derrickson’s additions involve Finney’s troubled home life, his spunky sister Gwen and his abusive father Terrance (Jeremy Davies). The first scene in Hill’s story, the Grabber dropping his groceries in order to lure Finney to his van, does not occur until at least 30 minutes into the film. Rather than stay with Finney in the basement, Derrickson continually cuts back and forth between his attempts to escape and Gwen’s efforts to find him. These additions significantly alter the tone of the original story for better or worse depending on what kind of horror movie you’re looking for.
In a rare villainous turn, Hawke portrays the infamous child murderer with an eerie flare and diabolical glee. Both versions of the story reveal little about this terrifying man, but what we do learn veers in opposite directions. Hill’s villain is named Al, an extremely overweight part-time clown who often reads as more pathetic than terrifying. Tousling Finney’s hair and sneaking down to the basement just to look at him, Al seems as much driven by a need for companionship as his urge to kill. It’s easier to believe him when he says he is not the killer, giving Finney and the reader a tiny shred of hope in the dark basement cell. Hill’s description contains shades of fatphobia, making the character less malevolent and more pitiable, and adding darker nuance to the story.
Hawke’s Grabber is fully evil, perhaps due to the shock of seeing the well-known actor victimize children. At first seen only in glimpses, he dresses the part of an amateur magician with white face paint and a black cloak and top hat. Once Finney is in his lair, he dons a sinister mask inspired by depression era magicians who would first perform devilish sorcery then reappear for a heroic second act. Created by special effects legend Tom Savini, the mask appears in several different variations, perhaps alluding to the mood of the Grabber or more likely the current stage of his killing ritual. Derrickson also introduces an element of his murders called the “Naughty Boy” Game which seems to involve laying a trap for his victims then viciously beating them as punishment for their contrived transgression.
One of the film’s most chilling sequences is another addition in which Finney nearly escapes from the basement. After refusing to take the bait of an unlocked door, Finney creeps upstairs past the masked killer who has fallen asleep waiting for him. Armed with information gleaned from a call with a previous victim, Finney silently struggles with the combination lock on the kitchen door. He finally opens it, but wakes the sleeping Grabber who charges out into the night after him. It’s one of the few moments in the film where we see Hawke’s face while he drags Finney to the ground and threatens to kill him if he makes a sound. His voice drops to a gravelly whisper as he threatens to gut Finney and strangle him with his own intestines, creating a haunting juxtaposition between Hawke’s movie star persona and the Grabber’s horrific crimes.
Another major addition to the source material revolves around Finney’s home life. Only mentioned in Hill’s story, Finney recalls his parents arguing about the Grabber and imagines their responses to his disappearance. He has an older sister named Susannah who flirts with the occult, reading Tarot and once using a stethoscope held to Finney’s forehead to accurately guess a series of playing cards. But Hill’s Finney is not overly concerned with his family, simply trying to escape the Grabber’s basement. He imagines his sister biking down street after street in search of him, an image Derrickson and Cargill use to spark a significant portion of their adaptation.
Derrickson’s Gwen is roughly the same age as Finney and the two share a close bond likely due to the the recent death of their mother and abuse suffered at the hands of their alcoholic father. Rather than Tarot cards and mysticism, Gwen receives her visions from God in the form of dreams that sometimes come true. Her father fears these abilities and tells Gwen that her mother couldn’t handle the weight of a similar gift and died by suicide to escape it, but it’s unclear what she was afraid of. This part of the story feels vague and thinly conceived, aligning much more closely to the world of occult spirituality than Christianity. Though scenes where Gwen questions her faith are charming, the entire plot line feels muddled and confusing.
Gwen is a fun character and McGraw’s high-pitched voice spitting out creative curse words to grown-ups infuses the dark story with humor. She is also scrappy and proactive, jumping into the fray to defend Finney from the bullies who are attacking him. But her most memorable scene sees her receive a brutal beating from her father for telling detectives about her visions. McGraw’s pleading cries as she tries to escape are heartbreaking and perhaps scarier than any of Finney’s scenes in the basement. Davies plays Terrance as a cruel and unstable drunk adding a darker element to the already pitch black story. It’s unclear when he started drinking or what their life was like before their mother died, but Finney and Gwen live a tense home life dominated by their father’s hangovers and beatings. Derrickson makes an uncomfortable comparison between the Grabber and Terrance as both men use belts to beat children. But this is another plot point that feels poorly fleshed out. Is this connection intentional? Are we meant to believe that Finney has escaped one monster only to wind up in the clutches of another?
These additions to the story are intriguing on their own, but feel tonally jarring in comparison to Finney’s abduction. Every time we leave the basement, we lose a little bit of tension. Gwen gives us another character to identify with, allowing us the safety of following her story rather than waiting in terror with Finney. Her storyline also undercuts the empowerment of Finney’s escape. Derrickson tries to have it both ways and allows Finney to kill the Grabber and save himself as Gwen uses her psychic gift to find the house he’s being kept in. The benefit of staying with him the entire time is that we’re able to completely focus on his own accomplishment, but Gwen’s plotline, charming as it is, steals focus away from his victory. Equally frustrating is Terrance’s abrupt turn once Finney has been found. The abusive father approaches his two children in tears as they huddle together in the back of an ambulance. While his apology is welcome in theory, Terrance’s plea for forgiveness feels unearned and disingenuous given the extent of the abuse we’ve already seen.
The film’s central relationship follows Finney and his contact with the Grabber’s previous victims and each call brings a bit of helpful information or a tool he can use to escape. Bruce is the first to call, delivering a heartbreaking line about not remembering his name because “it’s the first thing you lose” in death. This ominous statement packs a heartbreaking punch in Derrickson’s film, especially combined with home video footage of Bruce’s childhood. In addition to warnings about the “Naughty Boy” Game, one of the callers alerts Finney to a rope hidden within the room. Another helps him locate a hole he dug in the flooring under the tiles. An angry bully named Vance (Brady Hepner) tells him how to break through one of the walls into a freezer on the other side. None of these clues delivers Finney’s salvation on its own, but each tidbit allows him to construct a plan in which he is able to trap and kill the Grabber. As the calls progress, we begin to see the victims in the room, adding insight into their grisly deaths and foreshadowing Finney’s own impending doom.
Hill’s Finney receives several vague calls from Bruce who instructs him to pack the receiver with sand. As Finney chokes the Grabber with the cord, the phone begins to ring again. In a fist-pumping closer, Finney tells the Grabber, “It’s for you” and puts the receiver to his ear. This is where Hill’s story ends, leaving the reader to assume that Finney makes it out of the basement safely. Derrickson ups the emotional ante and allows the Grabber’s victims to speak to their murder, hurling his own ominous phrases back at him. He also includes an emotional scene in which Robin consoles Finney and encourages him once again to stand up for himself. Earlier scenes between Robin and Finney are touching, but this final conversation veers into the saccharine, creating an odd tonal shift from Vance’s previous anger that he has to help save Finney but could not save himself.
While Hill’s story ends with a knockout punch, Derrickson’s film concludes with an unnecessary coda where police explain the Grabber’s two homes and Finney returns to school with newfound confidence. While nice to see a character we’ve emotionally invested in succeed, the adapted ending transforms the terrifying tale into a horrific coming of age drama. Hill’s father Stephen King reportedly described Derrickson’s film as “”Stand By Me” in hell,” and it’s hard to disagree. Derrickson’s Finney learns a valuable life lesson and soldiers on, stronger for what he’s been through. Hill’s original story is much harsher, an unrelenting trip to hell with no comfort to be found.
While both versions have their merits, the film’s adaptation only succeeds for viewers wanting a feel good ending to a story about a child murderer. Others may wish additions to the story had given more information about the Grabber’s previous crimes. Derrickson hints at the “Naughty Boy” Game, but never expands on his motives or modus operandi. The sheer number of additions to the source material begs the question, is the film version of “the Black Phone” an improvement on the source material or does it lessen the stakes of a cold and terrifying story? With such a dramatic tonal shift, the answer depends entirely on what type of horror you’re looking for.
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