‘Black Phone 2’ Review
‘Black Phone 2’ is the perfect addition to the Halloween season. The contiguity of Gwen’s terrifying dreams and the reality of Finn’s experience reinforce why The Grabber has returned.
Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's (Sinister, The Black Phone) Black Phone 2 is the perfect addition to the Halloween season. Taking place four years after the events of The Black Phone, the film melds the worlds of lucid dreams, telepathy, dimension hopping, and real-life horror/crime into an ethereal dreamscape of fear, dread, and hope. The contiguity of Gwen’s terrifying dreams and the reality of Finn’s experience reinforce why The Grabber has returned.
The story starts off in 1957 at Alpine Lake, Colorado. A girl answers an isolated black phone in a booth. A majestic frozen lake is her backdrop. Jump forward to 1982 and we are reacquainted with Finn (Mason Thames) and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) who are still coming to terms with their issues. Seventeen-year-old Finney is still haunted by his experience with The Grabber and can't seem to find closure. Gwen continues to have predictive dreams, but they're becoming increasingly disturbing and might not just be dreams.
This time she's traversing time periods and realms. One of her dreams convinces her that she and Finn should work as counselors-in-training at a Christian youth camp at Alpine Lake. She, Finn, and her boyfriend Ernesto (Miguel Mora) brave a wicked winter storm to get to the camp. Once there, they meet Mando (Demián Bichir), the owner of Alpine Lake. It’s not long before Gwen's dreams ramp up a diabolical few notches and the history of Alpine Lake envelops her consciousness when she’s asleep.
The phone that rang for the girl in the beginning rings for Finn. The Grabber has come back from beyond the grave for him. Like Freddy Krueger, The Grabber is incredibly strong when he's in a dream. He even has the power to kill there. Ethan Hawke returns as the ostensible character and his ravaged look makes him even more foreboding and sinister. He's a vision straight from the depths of hell. Hawke’s gravelly voice lends to the moroseness of The Grabber, particularly when he has the creepy inflections.
Gwen keeps having visions of three boys that have been murdered violently. She realizes she needs to find their bodies in order for them to be free and for her cycle of deleterious nightmares to end. She and The Grabber are at crosspurposes.
What gives this follow up film an edge over the original is that it's much scarier. The dread increases at a steady pace. The visual language of the film crafts a horror tale invigorated by the 80s. The use of Super 8 film to denote Gwen’s foray into another dimension really gives us an intimate position in Gwen's nightmare, while also creating a general sense of nostalgia. Derrickson’s theology background peeks through at times in the dialogue and imagery, giving the story a certain level of spiritual and emotional substance.
What could have been explored more is Gwen and Finn’s mother. She’s the catalyst for the happenings in this tale. Gwen inherited her psychic abilities, but where did the mother get them from? When did they manifest? How was she treated when she was growing up as a result of having this gift? Her storyline with The Grabber is also a little too convenient and has aspects that seem implausible. The lives of the three dead boys could have been delved into more as well, which might have elevated them from specters to flesh and blood human beings who had lives and loved ones at some point. While Finn and Gwen’s world is expanded in Black Phone 2, the cast of characters is smaller, which helps emphasize the duo’s anxieties.
The soundtrack by Atticus Derrickson, Scott’s son, is off-kilter, heightening the sense of the otherworldly in the film. With its synth beats, it also assuredly connects us with the 80s world the story is set in. The production design is detailed and immaculate, fully immersing us in Gwen and Finn’s world.
Overall, Black Phone 2 is an entertaining thriller that expands its initial universe while also limiting it, turning the teens-stalked-at-camp trope into a potent ghost story. It improves upon The Black Phone by treating the supernatural with reverence instead of as a source for jump scares.
Black Phone 2, a Blumhouse production and Universal Pictures release, will hit theaters on October 17.
Sonya Alexander started off her career training to be a talent agent. She eventually realized she was meant to be on the creative end and has been writing ever since. As a freelance writer she’s written screenplays, covered film, television, music and video games and done academic writing. She’s also been a script reader for over twenty years. She's a member of the African American Film Critics Association and currently resides in Los Angeles.