As Finn, now 17, struggles with life after his captivity, his sister begins receiving calls in her dreams from the black phone and seeing disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp known as Alpine Lake.
When Scott Derrickson’s “The Black Phone,” based on the short story by Joe Hill, hit theaters in 2022, the movie became an instant horror classic and a massive hit both critically and commercially. Despite wrapping things up tightly, namely by having the main villain die, Blumhouse decided a hit must have a sequel.
Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw return as Finney and Gwen Blake, respectively, and the two promising young actors’ level of talent has only grown in the intervening years.
Finney has been self-medicating with marijuana to treat his PTSD symptoms (as well as getting into fights at school), and Gwen’s nightmares and psychic visions have gotten more intense. McGraw takes center stage this time as the plot revolves around her visions of the deceased Grabber, who can harm her and others from the dream world while his spirit resides in Hell. I guess when pulling ingredients together to make a sequel to a movie where the villain died, copying “A Nightmare on Elm Street” seemed like an applicable choice.
Derrickson does make some interesting choices, stylistically. The film relies on normal cinematography for the scenes that are part of the current-day narrative, and the dream sequences are shot on Super 8mm and Super 16mm, giving them this grainy, ‘70s and ‘80s home-movie style appearance. This lends a layer of authenticity to Gwen’s dreams, being from a past victim’s perspective decades earlier.
The performances by Thames and especially McGraw are commendable. The audience continuously roared at whatever creative insult flew out of Gwen’s mouth. Fans of the original should be excited for the new layers “Black Phone 2” adds to the story of the original, but fans of horror as a genre will be annoyed at the shameless recycling of clichés from superior horror movies of the past.
After “Megan 2.0” and now this, Blumhouse should stick to letting strong horror movies stand on their own and appreciate that not every hit needs a sequel.
In Theaters Friday, October 17th
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