'The Black Phone 2' Rings Again-But the Line's Gone Cold | Man of Many

"The first Black Phone was an outlier in the Blumhouse canon - a rare piece of prestige horror that fused intimate character work with supernatural dread. Director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill return to the receiver (sans the ' The') with Black Phone 2, a kind of Freddy Krueger meets The Thing sequel that melts away much of what made the first film unique."

"Four years after escaping the Grabber's basement, Finney 'Finn' Blake (Mason Thames) is now an angry teenager haunted by his past. Between smoking weed and fighting anyone who looks at him funny, he's still living in the shadow of a monster. His sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) swears by her prophetic dreams, which now pull her towards Alpine Lake, a snowbound Christian youth camp in the Rockies."

"When she starts seeing visions of missing boys and the phone begins to ring again, the siblings must face off with the Grabber's ghost, who lures them to the camp from 'the other side'. The image of a haunted winter camp gives Derrickson an evocative new canvas, and one that he largely uses to great effect. Along with cinematographer Pär M. Ekberg, Black Phone 2 returns to an analogue aesthetic, shooting dream sequences on Super 8 and Super 16 for that haunted-home-movie texture."

"The Black Phone was never a film that screamed for a sequel, but in bringing back the Grabber, the creative team had a chance to do something riveting with his return. What begins as an exploration of how trauma follows survivors like a curse soon slides into all the familiar slasher-territory tropes. The Grabber is now a ghost powering a blasé mystery that's largely resolved with a few exposition dumps."

Four years after escaping the Grabber's basement, Finn Blake is an angry teenager haunted by his past while his sister Gwen experiences prophetic dreams that draw them to Alpine Lake, a snowbound Christian youth camp. When visions of missing boys return and a mysterious phone rings, the siblings confront the Grabber's ghost luring them from the other side. The film adopts an analogue aesthetic, shooting dream sequences on Super 8 and Super 16 to evoke a haunted-home texture. The sequel shifts from intimate trauma-driven horror to familiar slasher tropes, resolving mysteries with exposition and underusing key performance strengths.

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