Year of Release: 2025
Director: Scott Derrickson
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Demian Bechir, Jeremy Davies, Miguel Mora, Arianna Rivas, Maev Beaty, Graham Abbey, James Ransone, Anna Lore, Simon Webster, Shepherd Munroe, Chase B. Robertson, Dexter Bolduc, Jazlyn Wong-lee, Julien Norman, Jacob Moran
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review
Following the success of "Black Phone", co-writer/producer/director Scott Derrickson has returned with a sequel which further establishes the mystique of the main villain, while also clarifying some key points of the past of some of the characters (coincidentally 2025 also saw the release of his Apple produced film, "The Gorge", which featured Anya Taylor-Joy, Miles Teller, and Sigourney Weaver). The narrative takes place in 1982, four years after the events of the first film. Finney is now 17 and is in high school, still experiencing issues relating to others, but protecting those who are bullied. His sister Gwen starts having dreams where she witnesses murders that have happened in a lake camp in 1957. Gwen and Finney's mother also had similar dreams, since she too had similar abilities to Gwen. Gwen convinces Finney and Ernesto, the latter the brother of one of the boys who got killed by the Grabber, to travel to that camp to investigate further. They get stuck at the camp due to a harsh snow storm. The camp is run by Armando and his niece Mustang, alongside two employees Kenneth and Barbara. Finney receives a phone call on the camp's dead payphone from the Grabber. He is intent on seeking revenge and starts doing so by attacking Gwen in her dreams. Everyone in the camp realizes they have to find the bodies from the additional victims of the Grabber, in order for him to lose his powers over the dream world. They realize the bodies are beneath the frozen lake. Armando, Hope (Finney and Gwen's mother), and the Grabber, all knew each other at the camp when they were younger. As it turns out, Hope's death wasn't a suicide after all. Finney and Gwen decide to fight back.
The first "Black Phone" was an interesting ghost story that managed to capture the spirit of the 1970s rather colorfully, even if the characters that populated that story had very little substance. This sequel, once again succeeds in establishing the mood and recreating the time period (kudos to the production design team), but as the nods to Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" become more pronounced (the killer that attacks you in your dreams, that can lead to lethal consequences), the characters and what makes them more unique falls to the wayside. The film's creative team is more concerned about tone and setting a mood, more so than bringing these characters to life, beyond the bare minimum of what would be passable for them to register as individuals (they let the costumes do much of that work for them, namely with the character named Mustang). Finney spends most of the film answering supernatural calls, whereas Gwen is perpetually falling asleep and either being targeted by the Grabber or witnessing past killings perpetrated by him. The film is not without its good points: Demian Bechir's Armando brings some humanity and intensity to an underwritten role, Ethan Hawke has fun playing a different version of Freddy Kruger, and placing the action in an isolated campground brings to mind all the horror films of the early 1980s (and this is a worthy homage). The cast is solid, led by Ethan Hawke and Demian Bechir, while Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw don't really do much with their characters. The production team is top notch, including Atticus Derrickson's score, Par M. Ekberg's cinematography, and Patti Podesta's production design. Ultimately it's a watchable film, but also one that is slight and unmemorable.
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