I would much rather have read this than watched it.

| Oct 14, 2022

Hancock and his cast effectively convey the essence of King’s story, which is about a well-meaning kid learning how anything that comes too easy likely has dark strings attached.

| Oct 7, 2022

Some may not go with this veering plot, but those who love Stephen King will enjoy the leap into speculative fiction. It’s what made him famous -- that ability to see how a little dark fantasy can illuminate the world.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 6, 2022

Resists the urge to delve deeply into the mechanics of using modern technology to speak to ghosts; instead, it’s a rather depressing allegory for our innate refusal to give up things that are convenient but bad for us.

| Oct 6, 2022

The story presents a title character so prescient about the woes of social media you’d think he was supernatural. Which he may well be.

| Oct 6, 2022

Add Mr. Harrigan’s Phone to the relatively short list of really good Stephen King adaptations, garnishing a coming-of-age story with understated hints of the supernatural and thoughtful rumination about cellphones that finds true horror in their ubiquity.

| Oct 6, 2022

Less a chiller than a diverting drama about technology with things that go bump in the night, along with some nicely apt ethical quandaries for Craig — and for us.

| Oct 6, 2022

An early engaging performance from the great Donald Sutherland and a consistently grounded one from Jaeden Martell keep Mr. Harrigan’s Phone from completely going dead, but you’re going to want to send this one to voicemail.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 5, 2022

It won’t keep you up at night, but it is a solid and surprisingly poignant effort.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 5, 2022

Such bottom-drawer source material proves to be an insurmountable disadvantage for John Lee Hancock’s Netflix adaptation of the same name, a downcast and thoroughly dreadful supernatural drama.

| Original Score: D+ | Oct 5, 2022

It’s all rather unforgivably dull, a call to be swiftly ignored.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 5, 2022

More akin to a stern lecture by a grownup than an eerie, unsettling cautionary tale, this adaptation of Stephen King’s short story might have succeeded better if it didn’t completely collapse into boomer-style commentary.

| Original Score: C- | Oct 4, 2022

As with the greatest King stories, the best parts here are not the horror elements (of which there are few). It’s the time spent with the characters.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 3, 2022

A strong start tapers off into a quiet and uneven morality fable that’s ultimately too vague to make an impact.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 3, 2022

Unfortunately, despite its intriguing premise, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone lacks the necessary ingredient to make it truly memorable; it simply isn’t very scary.

| Oct 3, 2022