Murder Phone – a party game where a creepy landline runs the show

Every group has that one friend who can’t lie. Ask them anything and their ears turn red. Social deduction games are their worst nightmare, and the best entertainment for everybody else.

Murder Phone puts that friend on the spot with an actual ringing telephone. It’s a hidden-role party game from Spin Master where a talking retro phone acts as the game master: it hands out secret roles, remembers what you told it, and calls one player in the middle of the game. I love the idea of a board game that can phone you. Slightly scared of it too.

What is Murder Phone?

Murder Phone is a party game for 4 to 10 players, ages 13 and up, and a round takes about 30 minutes. Spin Master showed it at Toy Fair in New York in February 2026 and it hit stores this fall.

The setup is pure slasher movie. You and your friends are stuck in a cabin in the woods, and the killer has locked up your friend Casey. To free her, the group has to find four keys hidden in the rooms of the cabin. Some of you are loyal friends. Some of you secretly work for the killer. Nobody knows who is who.

The star is the phone itself. It’s a battery-powered handset styled like an ’80s cordless landline, and it’s life-size, so it feels like something you’d find in a horror movie prop room. BGR saw it at Toy Fair and called it a mix of Among Us and Dream Phone, the 1991 board game with its own toy phone. That comparison is going to make a lot of people feel very old.

How does it work?

According to Spin Master’s description, it goes like this:

1. Everyone listens to the phone in secret to learn their role.
2. The group proposes search teams to explore rooms of the cabin and vote on who goes.
3. Team members use the phone to secretly choose whether the search succeeds or fails. Traitors can sabotage it.
4. Nobody knows who caused a failure, so the accusations start.
5. Once all four keys are found, the group picks a Champion to try to free Casey.

Along the way the phone relays the killer’s demands, remembers some of your answers and rings without warning. There’s also a Drama Queen role with her own goals, which is the most accurate thing ever put in a board game.

In the box: the electronic phone, two game boards, 11 photo cards, 10 player tokens, four keys, three failure tokens, Casey’s ring and a rulebook. The phone runs on three AAA batteries.

The good and the not-so-good

The good:

• The phone does the narrating, so nobody has to be the boring moderator.
• Up to 10 players. Most deduction games get crowded at six.
• Early buyers on Amazon like it so far: 4.7 stars from 59 ratings when I checked.

The not-so-good:

• You need at least four people. This is not a Tuesday night game for two.
• It’s a slasher theme with a PG-13 feel, so check your crowd before you play it with the little cousins.
• The phone goes to sleep after five minutes without input. Spin Master’s tip for long arguments: press a number key to keep it awake.

Who is Murder Phone for?

It’s for groups who already love The Resistance, Werewolf or Among Us and want something with a bit more theater. It’s also a good white elephant pick for a game night crowd. If your group would rather work together than lie to each other, get The Gang or Bomb Busters instead. More ideas are in our gifts for board game lovers.

Where can I buy Murder Phone?

Murder Phone is on Amazon for about 20 bucks at the time of writing (October 2026), which is less than Spin Master’s $24.99 list price. That’s cheap for a game with its own talking telephone.

If the phone rings at 3 a.m., don’t pick up.