"It is a phone. It's an Object of Power. It doesn't connect to any typical network. A direct line to the Astral Plane and the Board — and my hypothesis is, under the right conditions, to other planes of existence as well. Our very own Ouiji board. Only the Director can answer it safely, and what he hears is kept classified."
— Dr. Casper Darling, Control, "Case Files: Hotline"
A supernatural and otherworldly phone, but more commonly a cellphone. It may have the ability to tell the future, it could act as a personal teleportation device or even as a weapon. It may also allow conversations with the dead or supernatural and probably needs Super Cell Reception.
This type of phone tends to crop up in Urban Fantasy works. Also, in sci-fi, instead of having paranormal origins the phone might be highly technologically advanced as an excuse to do all sorts of impossible things. In horror, the phone is usually an Evil Phone and might even be an Artifact of Doom.
See also Phone Call from the Dead, Reinventing the Telephone, Telephone Teleport, Subspace Ansible, and Paranormal Mundane Item which often overlap. Related to Magical Camera (especially if it's a camera phone). Contrast Cell Phones Are Useless.
Examples:
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- A faux horror movie had the obligatory pretty young things relating an Urban Legend (accompanied by creepy music) about the advertised Samsung flip phone that compels you to switch to it the moment you lay eyes on it. One scoffs at the idea only to immediately fall under its power, so the others flee while trying to shield their eyes from all the other Samsung flip phones. They make it to their car and drive off...only to discover the jacket they used to cover their eyes had a Samsung phone in the pocket!
Anime & Manga
- In Bleach, some Shinigami, Rukia at least, are shown to use special cell phones to detect spiritual pressure in a close location in the World of the Living and to communicate with Soul Society. Lampshaded by Ichigo when he learns Urahara gave one to Uryuu during the time-skip: when Uryuu tells Ichigo to text him, Ichigo points out that a Soul Society phone isn't going to be compatible with "normal" phones.
- In Dark Gathering, a sex worker was killed by a gang of stalkers in a phone booth, or so the story goes. Her ghost took up residence in the booth and kills anyone who either enters the booth or calls its number. She is able to speak through the phone booth's receiver, which Yayoi uses to imprison her.
- Eden of the East: The Numbers all have phones that can call Juiz, who will grant any request within the realm of their 10-billion-yen budget. However, in The King of Eden, Taishi shows that Juiz can't do absolutely everything, as his crazy demands to get Akira and Saki to take a shower together for his movie just gets Juiz angry and frustrated at him.
- Future Diary has almost every major character having and using a supernatural cell phone or similar device that can tell the future in various ways.
- Fuuto P.I., being a sequel to Kamen Rider Double, features the return of the Stag and Beetle Phones. Sixth Ranger Tokime gets a Stag Phone of her own, in pink.
- In Hunter × Hunter, Shalnark uses his cell phone, Black Voice, as his weapon of choice. It lets him mind-control anyone he places a receiver on (and seems to control what they say via him texting the phrases). He can also stick a receiver on himself to give himself a power boost, though he can only move by inputting commands into the phone, and it quickly exhausts him of his energy. It can work as a normal cell phone. Black Voice has since fallen into the hands of Chrollo. Chrollo can exploit Black Voice even further than Shalnark could, as he has access to two receivers whereas Shalnark could only use one.
- The Laws of Eternity: The movie's plot parts from the rumors about Thomas Edison inventing a "spirit phone" being real, with the main character Ryuta and his friends recreating said device to contact him after a shaman channeled the man's spirit to give Ryuta a message.
- My Lovely Ghost Kana: Daikichi finds an old cell phone and through Kana's ghost powers, is able to communicate with her through it, though she doesn't need a phone on her end. Its camera is also the only one that can take pictures she shows up in.
- Occult Academy: The cell phone Maya swipes, from Fumiaki, has the ability to identify the "Nostradamus Key" with its camera function. Said artifact will trigger an alien invasion that results in The End of the World as We Know It.
- Ultimate Muscle villain Tel-Tel Boy (a.k.a. Dial Bolic) is a man-sized, fully functional telephone with arms and legs. His core ability is the "Trauma Call" — he dials up a person (or establishment) the opponent fears, then morphs into a copy of them. Of course, if he calls the wrong number, nothing happens.
- UQ Holder! has literal magic smartphones: they're non-corporeal and fulfill all the functions of a modern phone and more. In fact, one can literally purchase magic spells (magic apps) and use them from the phone rather than learn the spell the old-fashioned way. That said, magic apps do tend to be weaker or less useful than spells cast by an actual mage, who probably also knows when and how to use the spell more effectively in the first place.
Comic Books
- Dial H for Hero has a mysterious Transformation Trinket that appears to be a rotary dial with alien script instead of numbers attached to a strap. Later comics attach the rotary to actual phones, with origins in a civilization terminally dependent on similar devices. The 2018 title runs full tilt into this and introduces four color-coded dials, all mounted on and operated like various rotary dial phones, with unique transformations, whose effects can be transmitted through phone connections for mass empowering.
- The mental radios from the Golden Age Wonder Woman comics (Wonder Woman (1942) and Sensation Comics) manage to combine this with Reinventing the Telephone, because even though the "radios" allow the user to use a form of telepathy to connect with the person being contacted, the things are pretty much never used to do more than, essentially, FaceTime.
Eastern Animation
- Max and Sally and the Phenomenal Phone by Milos Macourek and illustrated/animated by Adolf Born: Two three-graders and friends, Max and Sally, help a stranger to find his lost glasses, and as a reward, he gifts them a seemingly ordinary torn-off telephone receiver. The receiver turns out to be magic. When they speak to it, some man's voice answers and grants their wishes. Max and Sally must be careful what they wish for, but usually, they have great fun and enjoy great adventures.
Fan Works
- At one point in All Guardsmen Party, The Rupert uses an Imperial Psyker in leiu of a "vox" (Think a highly evolved radio) to contact the party and send instructions. Everyone dreams of a mustache yelling "Is this thing on?" and then giving orders.
- In The Great Alicorn Hunt, Twilight magicks all of the Mane Six's vanity mirrors into Video Phones, and some makeup compacts into cell phones.
Films — Live-Action
- In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Peter and Aldous mock titular faux film star Marshall's having appeared in a film about a murderous cell phone, wondering why the phone could not be defeated by simply removing the battery.
- In Pretty Cool Too, a high-tech cell phone gives a mischievous high school senior the power to influence the actions of others.
- In When Evil Calls, the evil djinn is somehow able to send a text message to Samantha's phone, which starts off the chain of Be Careful What You Wish For wishes that sweeps the school.
Literature
- In Cell, the phones turn everyone into zombies.
- In Dead Lines, a telecommunications company markets the "Trans", a cellphone which they claim has near unlimited bandwidth, but it turns out that the bandwidth that it uses is also used by souls traveling to the afterlife.
- In Another World with My Smartphone's main gimmick is that after God mistakenly kills Ordinary High-School Student Touya Mochizuki too soon, he decides to give the boy a second chance at life in a magical fantasy world while giving Touya one wish to make up for killing him. Touya asked him if he could keep his smartphone. Now it has service in and GPS maps of said fantasy world, can access the internet of Touya's home universe, and can make direct calls to God. Touya mostly uses it for maps, selfies, and looking up how to make ice cream online.
- Kraken has 'knacked' mobile phones that can do things like communicate with Wati, a disembodied spirit, or communicate over an unlimited range.
- In The Laundry Files, magic is advanced maths and is, therefore, easier for computers to do than people. When Bob gets an iPhone, Brain gimmicks it to have the usual array of Laundry Agent spells as apps.
- The Mediochre Q Seth Series has Intrusively Mantic 'Phones (IMPs), which have been enchanted with technomancy to be able to mess with electromagnetic signals. Mediochre has one affectionately named 'Chips', which he variously uses to send messages detect and send messages to anyone with a normal phone nearby, block all outgoing transmissions in a given area, mimic the remote-unlocking command of a car key, and occasionally actually call people.
- The landlines and cell phones owned by the faerie in the October Daye series are all magicked for privacy and to work under odd magical conditions where technology ordinarily would not function.
- The Prague Cemetery mentions the Arcula Mystica, which is a diabolical telephone of which there are seven in existence. It operates wirelessly and is even able to communicate directly with its owner if he's away from it. This is one of the many creative fabrications of Real Life hoaxter Léo Taxil, who features in this historical novel.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who:
- In "The End of the World", the Doctor upgrades Rose's phone to be able to call home across the entirety of space and time.
- The title character of "The Empty Child" manages to activate the dummy prop phone on the outside of the TARDIS, much to the Doctor's amazement.
- Every companion since Rose has had their phone upgraded. They're referred to as "superphones". The Doctor themself has one that originally belonged to Martha Jones.
- Kamen Rider has increasingly included special gadget phones that can be included in the toyline as Official Cosplay Gear:
- Kamen Rider 555 is the first and best-known, as the series is based around Shoe Phone technology. The Faiz Phone is a flip phone that can turn into a gun, and is a key part of Faiz's Transformation Trinket.
- In Kamen Rider Double, both Philip and Shotaro have Stag Phones that turn into stag beetle robots, control their vehicles remotely, and attach to Double's weapons to enhance them. Sixth Ranger Terui has a similar phone that's modeled on a horned beetle (contrasting Double's stag).
- Kamen Rider Ghost has two phone gadgets that can either turn into little robots or attach to the Riders' gear to make a new weapon. Ghost has one in the style of an old rotary phone that turns into a condor or forms a crossbow, while Specter has a cell phone that can become either a cobra or a scythe.
- Kamen Rider Build, in what would become a recurring trend, has a smartphone that can enlarge and transform into a motorcycle.
- The heroes of Kamen Rider Zi-O each have the Faizphone X, which comes in the form of a pocketwatch but does unfold into a phone and, just like the original Faiz Phone, a gun.
- Kamen Rider Zero-One has the Rise Phone, which, like Build's, is a smartphone that transforms into a motorcycle.
- Kamen Rider Saber uses the smartphone-to-motorcycle transformation yet again, with each of the Riders owning Gatrike Phones that turn into three-wheelers.
- In Kamen Rider Revice, Fenix agents are issued the Gundephone50, which is a smartphone that can turn into a gun. Vice can also possess Ikki's Gundephone50 to communicate with people, as normally Ikki's the only one that can see and hear him.
- Kamen Rider Geats returns to Double's idea of transforming phones, with the aptly named Spider Phone, a device given to each participant of the Desire Grand Prix, which warns the Riders of new rounds in the competition while also working as, essentially, a free smartphone.
- The Villain of the Week in one episode of Misfits has the ability to call someone on their cellphone and use that to take over their body.
- There have been several iterations of Power Rangers/Super Sentai wherein their cellphones have been incorporated with their morphers. How many of them see regular use as phones depend on the series. Owing to the age of the franchise, they started out as flip-phones, then got progressively sleeker, and the most recent case resembled a smartphone.
- The Twilight Zone (1959): In the episode "Long Distance Call", a recently deceased grandmother calls her five-year-old grandson on his toy telephone, urging him to kill himself so that they can be together again.
- The X-Files: In the episode "Christmas Carol", Scully receives a phone call from a mysterious woman who sounds just like her dead sister Melissa. She urges her to help a little girl who turns out to be Scully's biological daughter. The FBI was able to trace the address and it's confirmed that a call came in from that place, but there was no outgoing call from that residence and their phone had been off the hook.
Music
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Midnight Star":
And top psychics all agree
That the telephone company
Will have a brand-new service that lets you talk to the dead.
Pinball
- The central object of Dialed In! is a smartphone developed by a shady company that can start and control natural disasters. The Player Character is a Villain Protagonist who proceeds to destroy parts of Quantum City for no reason other than they can.
Tabletop Games
- d20 Modern has the Eldritch Cell Phone
, which can contact any person's phone without needing the number, or even call the phone nearest to the person if they don't have one of their own. It also has magical encryption and protection against tracing. The core rulebook even has rules for transmitting spells by phone.
- In Nomine: The Cherubim of Jean can call the nearest phone to any person or object they are attuned to. If there is no nearby phone, they can spend one "Essence" to cause a cell phone to materialize for ten minutes within seven feet of their attuned.
- Mage: The Awakening has a sinister example in the Fear-Powered Cell Phone, an artifact that gets its strength by playing on the paranoia of its owner. It does so by regularly generating text messages like "They're coming" and "Get out of there now."
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse supplement The Book of the Wyrm gave us the Umbraphone, a mobile phone which can call up spirits across the Gauntlet (the spiritual barrier separating the real world and the Umbra).
- In Witch Girls Adventures, the Celestial Cell can be used anywhere on Earth (getting unlimited minutes; this was written before that was normal), and generally eliminating all the crap that comes with owning a cell phone or computer is a work of first level Cybermancy.
Video Games
- The Hotline in Control, a red rotary phone (with a missing dial) that serves as a direct line between the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control and its Board, a sort of benign Eldritch Abomination. Only the Director is allowed to use it; anyone else who tries suffers a gruesome but unspecified fate. The worse a Director suffers is a little Psychic Nosebleed. It also allows you to hear the final thoughts of the FBC's previous director, recently deceased, providing you with a lot of important context and knowledge about the Bureau.
- Ghostbusters: The Video Game: The Red Phone of Asmodeus is one of the Cursed Artifacts. You come across it in the main lobby of the office building in Times Square.
- In Metro: Last Light, Artyom comes across a phone ringing on his way to the "River of Fate", in an abandoned and half-flooded section of the Moscow Metro. Picking it up will have Artyom's mother calling at Artyom.
- Pokémon:
- Pokémon Sword and Shield expands on the "Rotomdex" introduced in Pokémon Sun and Moon with Rotom Phones, cellular phones possessed and powered by the literal Electromagnetic Ghost Pokémon Rotom. This allows them to fly and operate on their own, at their owner's direction. They can be mounted on the player's bicycle to generate a charge that grants a temporary speed boost. Their levitation is also used to save their owners from would-be fatal falls, carrying them at the very last second to negate fall damage.
- The Player Character in Pokémon Legends: Arceus is gifted an Arc Phone, which is their modern-day smartphone empowered by the light of Arceus and distinguished by a unique Arceus-themed case. In addition to giving Arceus a direct line to the player (via text message), it also displays a map of the area and directions for missions given out by the Galaxy Expedition Team and surrounding townsfolk.
- Shin Megami Tensei:
- Played with in Devil Survivor. In the first game, the protagonists receive COMPs — "Communications Players" that look like DS systems — which have been hacked to use the Demon Summoning Program; not quite cell phones, but in much the same spirit. The second game does use cell phones, but there's nothing inherently unusual about them: they only become unusual once the Demon Summoning App is force-installed on them.
- In Persona and Persona 2, Igor has a phone that allows him to fuse Personas through cards. In Persona 3 and onwards, he drops the phone and instead uses his magic to fuse them.
- Shin Megami Tensei IV and especially Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse keep this concept rolling, mostly in an example of Technology Marches On. It turns out you don't need a bulky wrist-mounted computer gauntlet or a specialized PDA disguised as a handgun in the age of smartphones. They even cover Demon Fusion better than the older devices did.
- In The Sims 2, the Resurrect-O-Nomitron is a phone you can use to call The Grim Reaper and pay him to bring back to life a deceased Sim.
- Trauma Center: Naomi, The Coroner in Trauma Team, has a phone through which she hears the Last Words of the current victim.
- Early on in Undertale, you get a cellphone which is by all means pretty normal, capable of making phone calls, although how a cellphone can get reception deep underground is never explained. Later, you get an upgrade to your phone that allows you to access your item storage chest at any time and adds a second chest, unless you follow a specific story route that causes the NPC who provides it to not appear.
- In The World Ends with You, the main characters receive the rules for the day's games from the Reapers with their cellphones through text messages. Joshua, however, kicks it up a notch using his to use initiate his attacks which include dropping objects and Jesus beams on his enemies. Later on, Neku's phone gets an upgrade that allows it to take pictures of the past, which is used less frequently than you'd think.
Webcomics
- Cucumber Quest: Nautilus summons her familiar Liquus with a cellphone. Although She's insistent on calling it a Royal Instrument of Summoning.
Web Originals
- In Board James's review of the Dream Phone, the eponymous phone (a children's toy that's not supposed to be connected to any real phone network) starts giving James threatening phone calls from a Serial Killer anyway. Then it turns out that the phone is said Serial Killer, able to wield a knife even though it's a phone and doesn't have any limbs.
- An intentionally terrible Creepypasta originally posted on 4chan tells of the narrator making out with their girlfriend, only to be interrupted by the girl's father calling them and asking them what they are doing with their daughter. The girl then informs the narrator that their father is dead, and the story ends with the now-memetic question of "THEN WHO WAS PHONE?"
- SCP Foundation has a few of these: SCP-086, SCP-145, SCP-270, the old SCP-400, SCP-467 and SCP-519.
Western Animation
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: "Sorry Wrong Ed" features a phone which curses Eddy when he takes it, causing it to inflict suffering on him whenever someone picks it up. Though Eddy eventually catches onto the curse, Double D refuses to believe that it is cursed, despite evidence to the contrary.
- Filmation's Ghostbusters has Ansabone, the wisecracking phone/answering machine.
"You've reached the Ghostbusters. They can't come to the phone right now — they're out to lunch! Permanently! Heh-heh-heh!"
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy has Billy making prank calls with Cthulhu's phone because it doesn't show up on caller ID. It has the side effect of turning anyone who answers it into an Eldritch Abomination.
- Kim Possible has a teleporter that works exactly like a phone.
- The Villain of the Week in the Miraculous Ladybug episode "Lady Wifi" gets her powers from her smartphone, which is being used as the vessel for an akuma. She can teleport between phones, and launch runes that freeze people in place or hijack television screens to broadcast the images of her choice. This also means that none of her powers work if she doesn't have a wifi signal.
- Witches in The Owl House have scrolls that look similar to smartphones. While they don't appear to be capable of making direct calls, they can be used for texting and connecting to Penstagram. There are also crows that fill the phone niche, and can not only fly directly to the person being called by carry them back to the caller.
- Pixel Pinkie is about a genie who lives in a mobile phone.
