Director: Scott Derrickson
Writer: Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill
Stars: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Ethan Hawke
Synopsis: As Finn, now 17, struggles with life after his captivity, his sister begins receiving calls in her dreams from the black phone and seeing disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp known as Alpine Lake.
Blumhouse is on yet another attempt at making a new horror franchise stick beyond its first film with Black Phone 2. The sequel to a rather successful start with 2021’s Black Phone brings audiences to 1982. Helmed again by director Scott Derrickson, The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) is back and doing his best to evoke Freddy Krueger. With its welcome use of Super 8 footage to nail the dreamlike world the film takes audiences into, there’s not enough within the film itself to warrant a sequel. Its repetitive story points and on-the-nose ’80s slang prevent Black Phone 2 from reaching the level of unease of its first installment.
For those wondering how The Grabber is still around to justify a sequel, he now exists in a world like something out of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. His grasp on his victims is still strong, even impacting a now-teenaged Finney (Mason Thames) and his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw). From the start, it’s apparent just how deeply Finney is scarred from his previous encounter with The Grabber—getting in bloody fistfights at school and secretly smoking joints while his family sleeps. But it didn’t just alter his life; Gwen has been experiencing nightmares that feel all too real to her. And given her interest in spirits and ghouls, she’s labeled as a weird kid, similarly to how her brother is treated.
These nightmares of Gwen’s get worse and worse as nights blend together. She finds herself unsure of what is real and what is fake, with the only person understanding the torment being her brother, who would rather forget everything he has gone through than face it. When both begin to hear phones ringing in the distance, Gwen seeks out whatever information is being relayed to her, while Finney answers with a simple, “I can’t help you.” Derrickson explores both Finney and Gwen well, while making Black Phone 2 more centered on Gwen’s story as she explores these psychic powers she’s developing, leading her to uncover information about unsolved disappearances at a Christian youth camp that holds a connection to Finney and Gwen in tragic ways.
While Derrickson is exploring Gwen’s nightmares is when Black Phone 2 is at its most engaging, creating unsettling, blood-soaked moments giving audiences a peek into the past of not only the camp but specifically The Grabber. Using grainy footage to put Gwen in the past allows the audience to feel as helpless as Gwen is to what she’s being put through. These nightmare moments are disturbing, but as the film goes on, they become one too many. While the film’s final act is where Gwen’s two worlds combine, it’s such a step away from what made the first effective—a realistic and terrifying child abduction that mostly works in the realm of tangible fears. Finney often gets his trauma pushed aside to explore more victims of The Grabber, not allowing his character to wrap his head around his experiences.
Where Black Phone 2 excels is in its performance from McGraw, but it’s not enough to keep this film from being flat-out boring. While The Black Phone had its own issues, the story felt engaging because it’s a human fear every child—and even adult—has experienced: being abducted so close to home by a man with a scary van, and being held in an unknown location with no way of reaching your loved ones. The choice to take this film into a new realm with supernatural elements takes away from how truly horrifying The Grabber was established to be, and how ambiguous his life was to a point. And while the film ramps up the supernatural aspects, the stakes don’t rise to the film’s potential, coming across as Freddy Krueger with an identity crisis. Hawke barely is given enough screen time within this sequel to match his performance in his first outing, often feeling like he wasn’t even on set to film.
While McGraw is the film’s shining star with her spunky comebacks and take-charge attitude, the film’s script leaves more than you’d want to be desired. Written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, the dialogue tends to come off as cringey attempts to establish the film’s time period more than anything, with Gwen offering an overdose of ’80s slang that doesn’t fit the film’s uneasy tone. Outside of the nightmares, the writing is at its worst—especially with new additions to the franchise’s roster, with camp workers and diehard religious couple Barbara (Maev Beaty) and Kenneth (Graham Abbey), and Gwen’s love interest Ernesto Arellano (Miguel Mora), who had a brother also killed by The Grabber. Their inclusion in the film adds more comedic moments that don’t fit within a film about children being brutalized.
Derrickson’s utilization of Super 8 footage mixed with blizzard conditions is what pulls this film across the finish line. While Gwen, Finney, and Ernesto embark on their drive to this camp in the chilly mountains of Colorado, there’s stunning camerawork while the trio is inside the car, showing emergency workers saving lives during an unprecedented snowfall, while also showing the teenagers pushing through and driving toward danger. When the nightmares begin in Gwen’s cabin, she’s completely isolated—being the only person staying in the female bunks—and while the Super 8 footage kicks in, it creates an atmosphere that allows dangers to hide in the shadows and an overwhelming helplessness.
While there are plenty of aspects of Black Phone 2 that fall short of being as impactful as the first, the snowy nightmares—led by McGraw’s strong performance—allow the film to hold your attention long enough to skate to the film’s credits.
