Director: Scott Derrickson
What Is Black Phone 2 About?
Black Phone 2 is a supernatural horror sequel that continues the story of siblings Finney and Gwen several years after they escaped a serial killer known as the Grabber. Still dealing with the trauma of what happened, their lives are disrupted again when Gwen begins having disturbing psychic dreams and receiving mysterious calls linked to a haunted black phone. These visions lead them to a remote winter camp where they uncover secrets about past murders and realize the Grabber’s evil hasn’t truly disappeared. As the danger grows, the siblings must confront both a returning supernatural threat and their own fears in order to stop the cycle of violence and help the spirits of the victims find peace.
My Personal Thoughts:
Starting from the top, I felt Black Phone never needed a sequel, and it would do just fine as a standalone film. With the success of the first movie, I was not shocked at all once I heard the announcement that they would be making a follow-up. As a fan of the first film, I had pretty high expectations for liking this movie, and unfortunately, I could not “grab” onto this film with the same enjoyment as the first one.
There are some positives in this movie, and I’ll note those first. I really enjoyed the way that they made the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) a more sinister, almost Freddy Kuruger from Nightmare on Elm Street vibe. We saw little hints of the supernatural ways the Grabber worked in the first film, but this second film cranks it up a lot with dream sequences and how he can control Gwen in particular. Speaking of Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), I also liked how she became more of the focal point character in this movie, with Finney taking more of a backseat. This felt refreshing as we already got enough out of Finney’s character in the first film, and there was not much left to explore with him as the primary victim. I also liked the scenery, giving a very snowy, dark, isolated setting with cabins where it feels like there is no true escape. There was a nice aesthetic throughout the movie of having that same Black Phone gritty feel, and this one took a much darker tone with more gore than the first one as well.
Now with the negatives. I think the overall story was much weaker than the first film. Blumhouse does not have the best track record with sequels, so I should have known better to walk in and think it would be better than the first film. Their connections of the dream world vs. the real world felt shallow, and I think the movie was breaking some of their own rules just to keep the story rolling. I also noticed that this film took a while for me to truly get interested in the direction they were headed. When they finally got to the meat and potatoes of what is going on, my interest never grew to the heightened level I expected. There was corny dialogue throughout, especially toward the end, which also took me out of the overall experience. The Black Phone world did not have a big enough lore where the answers we ultimately got made enough sense to care. It seems like the writers had many ideas that they wanted to include, and instead of picking 2 or 3 and really perfecting those, they tried to fit as many different angles as possible, which ended up being a conjoined mess.
Movie Stub Rating
This was a pretty disappointing one for me. Although the cinematography was excellent, there was decent suspense at times, and the Freddy Kruger aspect was cool, those are really the only positives I have to say about this one.
