Black Phone 2 Review: A Spine-Tingling Sequel!

Incorporating everything that makes a satisfying and exhilarating horror film, The Black Phone released in 2022 created a new horror villain icon while also developing one of the most emotionally charged films in the genre in years. At the root of the story were two siblings living in fear from their abusive father while having to move forward from their mother’s recent suicide.

Finney is abducted by The Grabber and must try to escape with the help of the paranormal child victims from the past contacting him through a phone in the Grabber’s basement. The film is a true horror on the surface while also metaphorically addressing children being stripped of their innocence and freedom through the trauma faced at the hands of adults who are to protect them.

Related – “The Black Phone” Review: Possesses Every Ingredient of a Great Horror Film!

Black Phone 2 is a continuation of Finney and Gwen’s story four years later as they move closer to becoming adults themselves. Where the story seems to wrap up in the first film, Scott Derrickson has developed a horror sequel that exhibits the deeper layers of Gwen and Finn’s stories set up in the first film making the Black Phone 2 a vital chapter in the character’s saga displaying what happens next as a result of unimaginable circumstances.

​It is now 1982, four years after Finney (Mason Thames) escaped and killed The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) with the help from his sister Gwen’s (Madeleine McGraw) supernatural abilities. Still having dreams that connect her to the spirit world, Gwen dreams of her mother calling from a youth camp in 1957, furthering her desire to investigate what all of this could mean.

When she sees a flyer looking for counselors at Alpine Lake Camp, Gwen, Finney, and their friend Ernesto (the younger brother of Robin from the first film) travel through a wild storm to get to the camp. Upon arrival, Finney continuously hears phone calls coming through from the broken down payphone signaling past events that occurred years before at the camp and the return of who Finney thought he defeated, The Grabber.

Black Phone 2 is one of the best horror sequels due to the deep foundation Derrickson created around the characters in the first film. Their stories are rich in layers of emotional depth and dark themes surrounding their parents as well as their lifesaving bond created as siblings working through everything together.

Gwen’s supernatural abilities to see the past and future in her dreams was a vast concept that the first film couldn’t fully investigate because of its focus on Finney’s story, understandably. However, the film lends itself to giving Gwen the lead role to fully flesh out how her abilities connect her to her mother and how her abilities are a mix between a curse and a gift.

​The film creates an even darker tone and atmosphere allowing itself to dive deeper into an ongoing story while also giving it a new setting to expand. It is set in the winter that escalates the already terrifying situations Finney and Gwen find themselves in. Just watching sends shivers around the audience’s bodies feeling like they are stuck in a freezing storm with the characters.

The icing setting causes us to feel watching mirrors of events that occurred at the camp decades before. Where The Black Phone featured a band of spirits trying to help Finney, its sequel flips the script in a way that gives Finney and Gwen the ability to save the lost spirits living at Alpine Lake camp from The Grabber.

​Just as the first film featured emotional depth, Black Phone 2 amazingly is able to expand on Finney’s ongoing feelings of fear and how his violent fight is something he has not been able to move on from since he was abducted. Although Gwen’s story may be the focus, Finney is just as much a lead in how Derrickson feels inclined to show audiences that defeating the villain doesn’t mean a story comes to an end. In this, the film is also an examination of Finney recovering from open wounds created years ago that have festered. Because of this, he fights physically in his line with others, showing the difficult line to see between fighting and knowing when to stop.

In this the audience can see a glimpse of the line Finney is toeing that could lead him into the same ditch his father found himself in. This kind of thematic continuation in this sequel is a testament to Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill’s immense care for this ongoing story. In all of this depth, Black Phone 2 does not miss on scares through its terrifying imagery and through the horror it displays of young kids and their inability to move on and heal at the hands of adults. Black Phone 2 is a rare sequel that fully understands the extent of its story and how to conclude stories that never “end” even when the credits roll.

‘Black Phone 2’ Rating – 4/5