As the credits finished rolling on Black Phone 2 (now available for streaming on platforms such as Amazon Prime Video), I found myself reminiscing about how captivating 2022’s The Black Phone was. It grabbed us with its tight storytelling, made us chuckle and shudder with its meticulous late-1970s atmosphere, and blended reality with a touch of the supernatural. Ethan Hawke’s portrayal of the villainous serial killer, the Grabber, was chillingly memorable. However, this sequel falls short. Despite the return of key creators like director Scott Derrickson, co-writer C. Robert Cargill, and story originator Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son), the film struggles to recapture the original’s magic. Instead, it leans heavily on early-1980s slasher tropes and supernatural elements, with Hawke’s presence reduced to voiceovers. The film does see Madeleine McGraw reprise her role, stealing scenes even when she’s not delivering memorable lines.

The Gist: Flash forward to 1982, four years after the Grabber (Hawke) met his demise at the hands of Finney (Mason Thames). Now going by Finn, he’s toughened up, ready to defend himself against any taunts about past events. When not fighting, Finn unwinds by smoking weed and watching Night Flight. His sister, Gwen (McGraw), contemplates romance with Ernesto (Miguel Mora) while dealing with vivid nightmares that cause her to sleepwalk. The siblings are each other’s guardians as their father, Terrence (Jeremy Davies), grapples with his demons, including alcoholism. Parenting Gen X kids seems to involve minimal emotional engagement, even as they navigate significant trauma from past events.

The siblings’ lives are further complicated by eerie occurrences: Finn passes by broken phone booths that ominously ring, stirring memories of past horrors, and Gwen’s dreams, filmed in grainy VHS style, hint at dark family secrets involving their late mother, Hope (Anna Lore), and a series of murders from the 1950s at a Christian camp where she worked. These dreams blur reality and drive Gwen to investigate. Along with Ernesto, she heads to the camp, leaving their father resignedly waving them off. There, a snowstorm leaves the camp mostly deserted, save for caretakers Armando (Demian Bichir) and Mustang (Arianna Rivas), plus two judgmental religious figures, Kenneth (Graham Abbey) and Barbara (Maev Beaty). As Finn encounters another mysteriously ringing phone booth, the Grabber’s voice taunts him about life beyond death and the nature of fear.

Gwen’s dreams only grow more intense, saturating the plot with unnecessary repetition. These dreams eventually lead the group to uncover connections between past and present, clarifying the Grabber’s haunting presence. A particularly intense dream sees Gwen battling an unseen entity, prompting a group discussion to piece together the mystery. Although this exposition-heavy scene drags on, it sets the stage for the ensuing supernatural conflict.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Grabber draws inspiration from Freddy Krueger, set against a backdrop reminiscent of Jason Voorhees’ notorious sleepaway camps. Additionally, it shares a kinship with M3GAN 2.0, another sequel struggling with complexity and expectations, though Black Phone 2 manages to avoid commercial failure.

Performance Worth Watching: As Thames sourpusses his way through the movie, McGraw holds down the fort with snappy line-readings and a sense of dramatic consequence that cuts through some of the nonsense.

Memorable Dialogue: “You think it’s hot that I talk to Jesus?” – Gwen calls out earnest Ernesto for his weirdly horny compliment

Sex and Skin: Nah.

Our Take: Note, by “makes sense” I mean it doesn’t really. And if your movie requires you to pause and tediously explicate at length, perhaps your movie is too convoluted for its own good. The first Black Phone stepped right up to the Overcomplication Line without crossing it, but the sequel blows past it, tries to make a U-turn and stalls out. That’s a long way of saying it lost me. This is what happens when you get too far from a grounded reality of serial-killer dread and instead rejigger the formula into a Nightmare on Elm Street scenario where the slasher bad guy straddles reality and the dreaming world. Gwen essentially becomes a Dream Warrior; cue the rockin’ Dokken track and complete the cycle, please and thank you.

Derrickson deserves some praise for not repeating the formula of the successful first film and coasting to an easy payday. He directs the hell out of Black Phone 2, like he did with the first, but in this case, he isn’t elevating a familiar premise to something novel, instead mistaking convolution for complexity. The final product boasts some inspired creepy moments – images of surreal, ghostly gore may stick to you like dried corn syrup – and smartly rendered visual textures cleanly differentiate between the waking and sleeping realities. But it’s generally humorless, is too grim for its own good and quickly gets repetitive as the film lurches tediously near the two-hour mark and a silly, overcooked climax. The Black Phone was ostensibly about generational trauma in a specific era, keyed in on the shit that scared us back then, but the follow-up dilutes those atmospheric qualities with plot plot plot that is not not not as affecting as it should be. 

Our Call: CLICK nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.