Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Craig, a young boy living in a small town befriends an older, reclusive billionaire, Mr. Harrigan. The two form a bond over books and an iPhone, but when the man passes away the boy discovers that not everything dead is gone.
Mr. Harrigan's Phone is a modestly effective Stephen King adaptation that leans more into quiet dread and character study than outright horror. The central relationship between Craig and the elderly billionaire is the film's strongest element, grounded by Donald Sutherland's dignified, nuanced performance and a competent turn from Jaeden Martell. The plot, adapted from King's short story, explores grief and the insidious nature of technology in an intriguing if underdeveloped way — the supernatural premise never fully capitalizes on its creepy potential. Cinematography is functional but unremarkable, offering little visual personality beyond standard small-town autumn aesthetics. The novelty lies in the film's thematic ambitions around materialism and grief rather than in conventional horror mechanics, giving it a slightly distinctive tone among King adaptations. The ending, however, feels anticlimactic and unresolved, failing to deliver a satisfying payoff to the moral and supernatural threads it raises — a common criticism mirroring the source material's own limitations in short-story form stretched to feature length.