Black Phone 2 Review

Directed By: Scott Derrickson
Written By: Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill; Based on the short story The Black Phone by Joe Hill
Runtime: 114 minutes
MPA Rating: Rated R for strong violent content, gore, teen drug use, and language.

Mason Thames – Finney Blake
Madeleine McGraw – Gwen Blake
Ethan Hawke – The Grabber
Demián Bichir – Armando
Miguel Mora – Ernest Arellano
Jeremy Davies – Terrence Blake
Arianna Rivas – Mustang
Anna Lore – Hope
Graham Abbey – Kenneth
Maev Beaty – Barbara

Director Scott Derrickson revisits his breakout hit movie, The Black Phone, with a new sequel, Black Phone 2. The Blake Phone was an exceptional effort, providing a refreshingly grounded and well-made take on the horror genre. The film featured Ethan Hawke going against type, portraying the terrifying and deranged serial killer, The Grabber. Unfortunately, despite some solid elements and humor, Black Phone 2 falls into the traps of many sequels, breaking the immersion and mystery of the original, forcing disappointing backstory connections wrapped up in a convoluted plot.

Continuing four years after the events of the original film, siblings Finney (Thames) and Gwen Blake (McGraw) return to confront a new mystery. Four years following the events of the previous film, the Blakes are older, and their father, Terrence (Davies), appears to have mellowed out and stopped drinking. However, a part of Finney never left the basement where he was held captive by The Grabber. Finney shields his trauma, pushing it inward under a veneer of anger, acting out and beating up kids at school, and becoming somewhat like the bullies who picked on him in the original film.

Meanwhile, Gwen suffers from recurring dreams leading her and Finney to a Christian youth camp, where their late mother once worked. Children went missing at the camp, and Gwen’s haunting memories suggest they met a terrible fate. Believing Camp Alpine Lake holds the keys to Gwen’s dreams, the Blakes and Ernesto Arrellano (Mora), the younger brother of Robin from the first film, sign up to become counselors at the camp. However, when they arrive, they learn that camp has been canceled and is snowed in by a hazardous blizzard.

Shortly after arriving at the camp, Gwen’s dreams became more ominous, visceral, and dangerous. A malevolent power lurks at Camp Alpine Lake, and spirits from beyond the grave reach out to the Blake siblings through a dead black payphone booth. Somehow, The Grabber has returned, granted unearthly abilities, seeking revenge against the Blakes. The Grabber’s newfound supernatural powers allow him to violently attack and brutalize Gwen from the dream realm.

The Blakes must now uncover the truth behind The Grabber’s victims and missing children before The Grabber’s power increases and he becomes an unstoppable threat who can attack innocent children in their dreams. Wait a minute, is this Nightmare on Elm Street or a Black Phone sequel?

Black Phone 2 features many of the same cast and crew members as the original, but the sequel fails to achieve similar results. The follow-up confirms that the original caught lightning in a bottle, and the story didn’t need any additions. For one thing, the sequel depicts a larger backstory and details regarding The Grabber, diminishing the villain’s mistake. Hawke did an excellent job creating a terrifying, malignant, and frightening force of evil, but there was nothing supernatural about the character. He imbued the character with a demonic layer, but the character was still a mortal man of flesh and blood.

Bringing back The Grabber as a supernatural dream master erases the character’s mystique and impact, ruining the grounded horror movie villain presented in the original film. Director and co-writer Derrickson definitely attempts to channel the likes of horror maestro Wes Craven and Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger; but Black Phone 2 plays out as far more derivative, whereas the original finally broke some new ground for the genre.

The backstory elements Black Phone 2 conjure for multiple characters suffer from being needlessly contrived and overwrought. Derrickson and Cargill’s script forces frustrating, artificial, and unnecessary connections. Black Phone 2 becomes annoyingly expository in the second half and spends way too much time talking about what’s happening, rather than showing the audience.

The sequel lacks a sufficient escalation of the emotional stakes. The narrative waits for bland exposition to move the clunky plot, which instead relies on the talented young actors to elevate the plot. Thames and McGraw are great young performers, and they do their best with what they’re given. They are growing up well into young adults, and McGraw still has some good one-liners. Unfortunately, their strong characterizations cannot uplift the nonsensical plot.

The Grabber’s transformation into a supernatural threat is a misguided choice. The plot reveals too many details about his cast, destroying the character’s mystique, while failing to clarify his newfound existence. The previous movie featured a supernatural angle with the ghostly voices of The Grabber’s victims reaching from beyond the grave to contact and guide Finney on the black phone, along with Gwen’s spiritual, extrasensory abilities. Again, the sequel works too hard to explain these elements, and the explanations sound silly.

Sometimes, the mystery works better than the truth. Losing the ambiguity behind many of the concepts and ideas of the first removes their power and impact. Plus, as a super-powered, demonic, other-worldly dream killer, The Grabber lacks teeth, as his bark is worse than his bite.

Black Phone 2 mounts to a disappointing and underwhelming sequel to a far superior original, reinforcing that The Black Phone never needed a sequel to begin with. Rather than interestingly expanding upon the plot of The Black Phone, Black Phone 2 constantly answers all the questions left unanswered by the original in a contrived fashion, and it also answers questions that do not concern audiences.

The answers take the sequel into derivative territory, repeating many of the same errors of past horror franchise follow-ups that could never surpass the original installments. Sadly, Black Phone 2 follows in their footsteps.

WHERE TO WATCH

Black Phone 2 is playing now in theaters in the U.S. Ticket details and showtime information are available at the film’s website.

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Black Phone 2 suffers as a disappointing sequel to a far superior original movie that probably did not need one. The sequel seeks to expand upon the original, but fails to achieve the exceptional balance of the previous entry, which successfully mixed more grounded, realistic elements. The plot suffers from being endlessly wordy and expository, over-explaining every new reveal, and disappointingly breaking the mystique of figures such as The Grabber. The Grabber, once a terrifying and unique horror movie villain, now appears as little more than a derivative rehash of his predecessors. Black Phone 2 fails to catch lightning in a bottle for a second time.