The Black Phone 2 arrives as Blumhouse, the studio behind the original hit, desperately needs a win after a string of disappointments including Wolf Man, The Woman in the Yard, Drop, and the box office disaster M3gan 2.0. The sequel attempts to turn the child-killing Grabber, played by Ethan Hawke, from a flesh-and-blood villain into a supernatural one, taking inspiration from Freddy Krueger but lacking his inventiveness and humour.
The first film ended with Finn (Mason Thames) killing the Grabber with help from the ghosts of previous victims and his psychic sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw). The sequel forces writer-director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C Robert Cargill to find a new direction, giving the Grabber the ability to cross into the real world via dreams. However, the character is markedly uninventive and devoid of humour, and Hawke this time plays him without the campiness that made him memorable in the original.
The story follows Finn and Gwen as they encounter the Grabber again while snowed in at an alpine Christian camp for kids. Gwen is guided there by visions of her late mother and the Grabber's first victims, while Finn follows to protect her. The script is ungainly in its contrived scene-setting, clumsily adding backstory for both siblings and antagonist that feels unnecessary. Derrickson also introduces a religious element, aligning good with God and evil with the devil, in a calculated move to appeal to the same church-attending audiences that made The Conjuring franchise a hit.
These additions over-stack a series already close to toppling, adding unnecessary complications to what should be a simple horror premise. The consistently un-scary set pieces are marred by a grainy 8mm texture to differentiate asleep and awake, an ineffective stylistic choice. While Hawke brings genuine presence, his face is never seen, and the rest of the cast fails to impress. The Black Phone 2 struggles to recapture the fear of its predecessor, leaving viewers cold.
