Movie Review: ‘Black Phone 2’

Opening in theaters October 17 is ‘Black Phone 2,’ directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, Demián Bichir, Miguel Mora, and Arianna Rivas.

​Opening in theaters October 17 is ‘Black Phone 2,’ directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, Demián Bichir, Miguel Mora, and Arianna Rivas.   

Opening in theaters October 17 is ‘Black Phone 2,’ directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, Demián Bichir, Miguel Mora, and Arianna Rivas.

Related Article: ‘The Black Phone’s Scott Derrickson to Make New ‘Night of the Hunter’ Movie

Initial Thoughts

2022’s ‘The Black Phone,’ directed by Scott Derrickson from a script by him and C. Robert Cargill (based on a short story by Joe Hill), was a fresh, supernaturally-slanted take on the serial killer trope, told through the lens of Derrickson’s own childhood memories of growing up in a working-class Denver, Colorado neighborhood in the 1970s. It featured Derrickson’s uncanny ability to craft scenes filled with menace, as well as genuinely harrowing work from Ethan Hawke as the child killer known as the Grabber and Mason Thames as his latest victim.

Although ‘The Black Phone’ was a self-contained story, Derrickson and Cargill have found a way to extend the narrative with ‘Black Phone 2,’ which also brings back Hawke, Thames and Madeleine McGraw as the sister of Thames’ character. Leaning more heavily into the supernatural, and wearing influences like the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ films and ‘The Shining’ more outwardly, the slow-burning ‘Black Phone 2’ strains at times to force its narrative forward but still delivers an often-frightening and gorier new chapter of the story.

Story and Direction

It’s four years since Finney ‘Finn’ Blake (Thames) was held captive by the Grabber (Hawke), finally killing him and escaping with the help of calls from the murderer’s previous, dead victims on a disconnected rotary phone in the Grabber’s basement lair. Still plagued by trauma from his encounter, Finn at first does not want to hear that his younger sister Gwen (McGraw) is having psychic dreams – just like their mother, who ended her own life – in which she sees three dead, mutilated boys at a Christian youth camp called Alpine Lake.

After learning from their father (Jeremy Davies, more dazed this time around) that their mother worked at the camp years ago, Gwen insists that she and Finn – along with their friend Ernesto (Miguel Mora, returning from the first film but this time as his doomed character’s brother) — head up there to find out what happened to the boys before the dreams drive her mad. Snowed in with the camp’s manager (Bichir), his niece (Rivas) and a pair of administrators, the group are besieged not just by Gwen’s ever more vivid dreams but physical manifestations as well – and increasing signs that the Grabber himself is reaching out from beyond the grave to take revenge on Finn and Gwen.

The lonely, windswept, snowbound camp, its buildings’ big picture windows looking out on absolute darkness at night, is a highly effective setting for ‘Black Phone 2.’ Derrickson wrings the most atmosphere out of that, but saves his most unnerving moments for Gwen’s dreams, which are filmed in Super 8 (another Derrickson trademark that goes back to ‘Sinister’). The grainy, faded look adds a layer of unreality to the dreams that is hard to shake, especially as the movie’s spirits begin to appear. As in the first film, the director also knows how to get maximum terror out of a ringing phone and a static-filled line – two things that are often more unsettling than most of us want to admit.

Some of the characters – like Finn, Gwen, and Bichir’s Armando, are well-drawn and given more depth, while others, like the Blakes’ now-sober but dazed dad, get the short end of the stick. Perhaps more controversially, Derrickson and Cargill’s script provides the Grabber with more of an origin story this time, while also explicitly making him into a supernatural being. The story also labors to tie the Blakes and the Grabber together in a more unified way. Whether that makes the universe of the film smaller and less mysterious is a matter of debate, but it makes the script more contrived this time around.

The film also bends the grounded vibe of its predecessor to allow for events in dreams to affect the physical world, which brings this narrative closer to that of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and its well-loved ‘Dream Warriors’ threequel. It’s not an entirely successful gambit, but it doesn’t detract from the still-heartfelt and genuinely terrifying story at hand.

Cast and Performances

Although he arguably has less screen time here, Ethan Hawke is still skin-freezing as the Grabber, bringing an intensity to the role that makes him one of the more striking horror creations of the past decade.

But the movie belongs to Mason Thames and especially Madeleine McGraw, both older and wiser – and a masterstroke for Derrickson to get them both back. Finn and Gwen are suffering from PTSD in their own way, and both actors offer up a raw portrait of two kids deeply suffering from trauma. In the end, it’s McGraw’s emotional, complex performance that stands out the most, marking her as an actor to watch.

The supporting cast is capable in all respects, but Demián Bichir also deserves mention: his customary warmth, earthiness, and humanity bring depth and empathy into a character that could have easily been one-dimensional.

Final Thoughts

‘Black Phone 2’ doesn’t just recycle the first film, like many horror sequels, and while not every new direction it takes works, the film is still a mostly gripping and unsettling affair. Scott Derrickson remains a master of sustaining a mood of dread throughout, and gets the most out of those truly eerie dream sequences.

If the story twists itself to get to where the filmmakers want it to go, and the logic of the movie wobbles from time to time, it makes up for those flaws with some truly great performances, the director’s use of space, shadow, and texture, and the ominous netherworld in which it’s set. If the ‘Elm Street’ movies had kept playing it straight, they might have ended up here.

‘Black Phone 2’ receives a score of 80 out of 100.

What is the plot of ‘Black Phone 2’?

In 1982, four years after the events of ‘The Black Phone,’ Finney Blake is trying to deal with the trauma of his experience with the now-dead Grabber. Meanwhile, his sister Gwen starts having terrifying visions of mutilated children and nightmares that include a ringing phone.

Who is in the cast of ‘Black Phone 2’?

Mason Thames as Finney BlakeMadeleine McGraw as Gwen BlakeEthan Hawke as the GrabberDemián Bichir as ArmandoMiguel Mora as Ernesto ArellanoJeremy Davies as Terrence BlakeArianna Rivas as MustangAnna Lore as HopeGraham Abbey as KennethMaev Beaty as Barbara

Other Scott Derrickson Movies:

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