Jimmy Fallon embraced nostalgia for a gag in his monologue Friday on “The Tonight Show,” connecting the new horror film genre to an age-old cable TV shopping channel.
Fans of “The Black Phone” can breathe easy, however — he was only joking.
“Some entertainment news: It’s a big movie weekend. ‘Elvis’ is out this weekend,” Fallon said as he started in on the gag.
“Another movie called ‘The Black Phone’ just hit theaters, and it is a horror-thriller about a psychopath known as The Grabber,” Fallon continued, feigning a look of fright. “Actually The Grabber sounds like a product your grandma would buy on QVC.”
Fallon then faked us out, as if he was about to break down the film’s plot.
“That’s right, The Grabber is a terrifying tale,” Fallon said, “of your friend who eats french fries off your plate.”
Alas, director Scott Derrickson’s film starring Ethan Hawke is instead about a kidnapped boy who survives a serial killer’s wrath by listening to the killer’s past victims via a disconnected black phone.
But Fallon was smart to jump on “The Black Phone” bandwagon.
The box office opening for the movie has beaten expectations, garnering projections of more than $20 million. With a reported $18 million budget, “The Black Phone” is set to turn a profit for Universal even if it follows the frontloaded box office performance of most horror films.
Critical reception has also been positive, as the film drew a B+ on CinemaScore to go with an 84% critics score and 90% audience mark on Rotten Tomatoes.
Watch the Fallon segment here or at the top of this post.
Jeremy Fuster contributed to this report.
