Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Black Phone.,A theory about The Black Phone suggests the movie is hiding its biggest secret in plain sight. The newest horror movie from director Scott Derrickson, The Black Phone is an adaptation of a Joe Hill short story that features a serial killer known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), who abducts teenage boys and hides them in the basement of his home until he finally takes their lives. In the midst of all the terror and horror present in the film is the implication that not all is as it seems.,When The Grabber makes his latest victim a shy 13-year-old boy named Finney (Mason Thames), it’s revealed to the audience that a disconnected phone in The Grabber’s basement—the titular Black Phone—is a tool that the killer’s former victims use to help give Finney the upper hand and escape. The Black Phone‘s villain isn’t supernatural, but all the supernatural elements in the film come together to work against him. It’s not just the ghosts of The Grabber’s former victims teaming up with Finney, as it is also revealed that Finney’s sister, Gwen, has dreams that come true—an ability she apparently inherited from their mother. Throughout The Black Phone, she uses her psychic abilities to try to find Finney and save him before it’s too late.,Related: Does The Black Phone Have An After Credits Scene?,The Black Phone never says as much, but there are hints that Gwen isn’t the only psychic kid in the movie. The first ghost that Finney talks to mentions that the Black Phone has been ringing all along, but none of the other victims could hear it. The Grabber can hear the Black Phone ring because he’s being haunted by his crimes and his victims, but there is never any indication that anyone else, aside from Finney, can hear it.,Finney is his mother’s child just as much as Gwen is. Gwen is bolder than Finney and more likely to speak up about her dreams, so it’s possible that if he’s ever had psychic dreams, he doesn’t mention them. There’s even a scene in The Black Phone where, after beating Gwen for talking about her psychic dreams, their father asks Finney a question just vague enough to suggest Finney might have had similar troubles in the past.,It’s also entirely possible that his powers manifest differently than those of his sister. Finney is shown talking to the various victims of The Grabber throughout The Black Phone but isn’t ever shown to have premonitions or visions of things happening in other places. It’s likely that his abilities lie more along the lines of being sensitive to the other side instead of having dreams.,The Black Phone lingers on the question of Gwen and Finney’s mother longer than would be strictly necessary if it weren’t trying to seed something important with her character. Her absence in their lives is apparently because her abilities drove her to suicide and their father blames her powers—or anything like them—for her death. While setting up the mother merely to explain where Gwen’s powers come from in The Black Phone is a possibility, it feels like there’s more to it. Finney’s vague conversation with his father after Gwen’s beating, in particular, feels out of place if he isn’t himself somewhat sensitive to the supernatural.,Related: Why The Black Phone’s Reviews Are So Positive,That one of the ghosts explicitly tells Finney that none of the other victims could hear the Black Phone ringing suggests something is different about the boy. He gains information he shouldn’t be able to know from the ghosts, like the existence of the freezer on the other side of the basement wall, the location of the cord he uses to pull the bars out of the window, and the combination to the lock on the front door of The Grabber’s home. The ghosts want to help him and talk to him, suggesting that something about his powers draws them to him and allows him to understand them. The information he gets from them saves his life at the end of The Black Phone.,Admittedly, The Black Phone isn’t clear on the origins of its characters’ psychic abilities. Gwen clearly has and uses them, likely inheriting them from her mother. The movie seems to suggest that Finney is much the same, but that his abilities are a bit different than those of his sister. If The Black Phone 2 ends up happening, perhaps his status as a psychic will become clear and this theory about The Black Phone will prove to be true.,Next: Everything We Know About The Black Phone 2