While it can't match the original's foreboding tone, Black Phone 2 makes solid use of its talented young cast and premise.
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Death has never stopped a horror sequel from being made. Doesn't matter if you off the masked killer in your slasher, fend off an angry demon, or survive phase one of the zombie apocalypse. There's always a route forward for more. And if you have access to a gravel voiced Ethan Hawke who clearly likes working with you, why wouldn't you make a sequel to your successful horror flick? Enter Black Phone 2, a direct sequel to the original film, that expands on its supernatural premise to bring Ethan Hawke's "Grabber" back for another round of violent threats towards kids. But is it any good? Let's find out.
The Setup
A few years after killing and escaping "The Grabber," Finney Blake is struggling to cope with his trauma. Not only that, but his sister is getting terrifying visions of murdered children at a camp in the woods. Hoping for answers, the siblings set out for said camp only to run into a new, more powerful version of the killer Finney killed...
Black Phone 2 is pretty good. Pretty spooky. Pretty good progression from where the original movie went. What stands out?
A Different Character/Thematic Focus
Writer/director Scott Derrickson had a smart realization. The best character in his last movie wasn't Finney. It was his sister Gwen. Finney is what the story needs in the first film. He's a passive young man who has to learn how to take action to save his own life, literally getting guidance from beyond the grave for how to do it.
While Gwen was busy physical defending her brother in fights, cursing adults out like a seasoned dock worker, and tapping into her physic capabilities to help out her brother where the police and her father have failed (despite her father's misgivings). In short, she rules.
So unlike last time, Gwen is the driver for all of the movie's action. It's her visions that push her little band to investigate. It's her pushing Finney to do something besides be violent and get high as coping mechanisms. And it's her putting the puzzle pieces together to figure out what's going on and how to fend off this angry demon version of the Grabber.
All of which is paired with a solid theme which is...your problems don't go away if you ignore them. Gwen is so action-oriented that she highlights everyone else's inaction or refusal to achknowledge what's going on whether it's the camp owners who'd rather ignore their horrific history or Finney who tries to disassociate with drugs versus talking about what happened to him.
Enter Gwen the young teen wrecking ball whose perspective and identity is so self-assured that everyone else looks weak by comparison. It's a fun trick.
Enter Gwen the young teen wrecking ball whose perspective and identity is so self-assured that everyone else looks weak by comparison. It's a fun trick.
A Much Different Visual Palette
Part of the reason the original Black Phone stood out is that despite featuring a child killer as the movie's villain, there was very little violence committed against children shown on-screen. Partially because that's a bit rough to do in any movie, but also because the thought of what Hawke's "Grabber" can and will do to Finney is the movie's main source of tension and horror. Finney knows this guy kills kids and so do we, and the movie festers in that knowledge.
This time around we're getting gorier and fuzzier.
Without spoiling much, a fair amount of this movie occurs in a snow-covered camp and in a dreaming space. But instead of being crisply shot, the movie uses the snow as a visual effect that puts a found-footage like fuzz over this dreaming world. Which also means you can use that bended reality to freak out the audience with gory jump scares as Gwen in particular sees what happened to the kids who went missing at this camp. These bits are pretty creative because they're blending something akin to slasher thrills and ghost movies at the same time with that fuzzy outlook both highlighting the horror and softening the images.
It's a nice way to demonstrate how nightmares can feel as you're experiencing them and also provides a nice pivot, since we're dealing with an angry post-mortem Grabber.
Lacks the Same Weight
On the surface, this version of Hawke's The Grabber is scarier than the original. He carries out much more violence on screen, does a lot of taunting, and he's dead so it's harder to piece together how to stop him.
But...it might actually be too much. Part of the reason I highlighted the original film's restraint, is because that's a key part of the horror. The key source of tension that makes every ghostly call Finney has feel desperate. Now the Grabber is like a cartoon villain complete with superpowers, impossible levels of violence and last second reveals.
This leads to a number of moments that are supposed to be scary, but end up being funny by accident. And this is on top of the movie already being waaay funnier than the first one because Gwen is our lead and she curses like she's been fending off hecklers during open mics for 5 years and we need to cut the tension because is actually a little group working together versus isolated people trying their best on their own.
The first movie was a young man using the strength of the victims before him and his brave sister to fend off a child killer. And now it's...almost an early episode of Stranger Things. Far from a dealbreaker, but it you're wondering why this movie doesn't feel as triumphant, that's likely why.
This leads to a number of moments that are supposed to be scary, but end up being funny by accident. And this is on top of the movie already being waaay funnier than the first one because Gwen is our lead and she curses like she's been fending off hecklers during open mics for 5 years and we need to cut the tension because is actually a little group working together versus isolated people trying their best on their own.
The first movie was a young man using the strength of the victims before him and his brave sister to fend off a child killer. And now it's...almost an early episode of Stranger Things. Far from a dealbreaker, but it you're wondering why this movie doesn't feel as triumphant, that's likely why.
The Verdict: A Solid Sequel
While it can't match the original's foreboding tone, Black Phone 2 makes solid use of its talented young cast and premise. 7/10
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