Remember when your smartphone used to have that handy headphone port? Or the home button? Or who could forget the original smartphone, the one that let you communicate with people from beyond the grave? Oh right, maybe that wasn’t an official design feature.

But in the new Stephen King adaptation of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, an iPhone turns into a living nightmare. The film centers on Craig (Jaeden Martell), a teenager who befriends a reclusive and very creepy billionaire (Donald Sutherland). In the trailer, Craig helps Mr. Harrigan set up his very own smartphone and Mr. Harrigan assigns himself the nickname “pirateking.” Their friendship is cut short when Mr. Harrigan passes away unexpectedly, but somehow Craig continues to receive calls from “pirateking,” and, soon enough, people around him start to turn up dead. “Some connections never die,” the trailer reads.

One might call Mr. Harrigan’s Phone a period piece, throwing back to the days of the iPhone 1. Remember those shiny text bubbles? Well, they’re back in full force. “We had this master room, there was nothing but old technology in it,” writer-director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) tells Tudum. It’s more than just an aesthetic: Mr. Harrigan’s Phone may be supernatural, but in a way it’s also a simple story about the groundbreaking introduction of the smartphone. “I have 22-year-old twins,” Hancock says. “And so when they saw the movie and they read the script earlier, they said, ‘Wow, that was what it was like when the iPhone 1 came out. Wow. It was earth-shattering.’ And I go, ‘It was.’ ”

But it’s also simpler than that. Hancock describes Mr. Harrigan’s Phone as a relationship story — you know, a kind of Back to the Future May to December friendship. Of course, the film’s Mr. Harrigan takes his commitment to his young protégé a little further. As Craig struggles with bullies, he leaves a voice mail on his friend’s phone, which was buried with him. The question of how Mr. Harrigan chooses to help Craig from beyond the grave looms over the rest of the film. 

“What does it mean to be a friend? And how far will you go for a friend even after you die?” Hancock asks (rhetorically, we hope!). “Will you take down their enemies? I think it’s about friendship and technology. And in some ways, the iPhone’s the original sin.”

The new film has some real horror pedigree on its side, too. It’s produced by Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story), Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity) and Carla Hacken (The Book of Henry). So whether you’re here for friends or frights, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone should leave you satisfied.

Keep an ear out for a Mr. Harrigan’s Phone ringtone when it hits Netflix on Oct. 5.

Additional reporting by Anne Cohen.