Review: Hell Freezes Over in BLACK PHONE 2
The Grabber is (somehow) back, and this time he’s bringing his ice skates.
It’s been four years since the original The Black Phone, and survivor Finn (Mason Thames, How to Train Your Dragon) is now older, a little meaner, and straight-up tired about the serial killer shit. He’s still haunted by silent visions of the Grabber (Ethan Hawke), as well as ringing phones from long-dead landlines. And he smokes pot now.
His little sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who had tapped into burgeoning psychic powers to rescue her brother all those years earlier, is also suffering, plagued by sleepwalking nightmares and phone calls from her long-dead mother. Gwen doesn’t really fit in at school; her hair is cropped not crimped, and there are whispers around the classroom that she’s a witch. One of those sleepwalking nightmares takes Gwen to the dungeon location of the first film, now empty and graffitied with things like “THE GRABBER BURNS IN HELL.”
Or does he? Her intuition leads the siblings, as well as Ernie (younger brother to Finn’s late best friend, both played by Miguel Mora) to Alpine Lake Winter Camp, an appropriately named Christian camp built on a sprawling (currently frozen) mountain lake. These new counselors-in-training find themselves trapped in the middle of the blizzard, joined by a skeleton crew support staff (led by Demián Bichir’s Armando). They’re shown to two big empty cabins (one for boys, one for girls) and left alone with their dreams.
As Gwen’s dreams get worse, they begin to (literally) bleed into the real world, with the spirit of the Grabber channeling his best Freddy Krueger. And that’s where the story really takes off. With its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025 in Austin, Black Phone 2 (directed once again by Scott Derrickson, and written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill) is eager to tell the next (final?) chapter in the Grabber’s story.
It’s still so cool to have Ethan Hawke in this role, adding a gravitas to the Grabber that is frankly unmatched. One of our greatest living performers is hamming it behind a frozen mask; you have to love it. Get Daniel Day Lewis to play Jason Voorhees next.
Black Phone 2’s strongest storytelling choice is its setting in the Colorado cold, in the ice, in the beautiful snowy mountains. Maybe I’m just saying that because we had just spent the hours before the premiere in the hot sticky heat of the Texas fall. But it makes the sequel feel more like The Empire Strikes Back (how many Star Wars references can I get away with in my reviews before my editor catches on), and adds a different, welcome visual element, in addition to notes of The Shining and Curtains (1983). The religious seeds laid in The Black Phone sprout also in this installment, providing a nominal amount of spirituality, quoting scripture back at the Grabber like The Exorcist.
And, while not directly based on a Joe Hill story like its predecessor, some of the film’s strongest moments are the ones that make it feel tied to the author’s work at large. It might just be the aforementioned frozen setting, but the kids stuck behind the ice reminded me so much of Hill’s Christmasland in NOS4A2. And a dead kid in a yellow parka replaces a dead kid in a yellow raincoat slicker, subconsciously channeling some of his dad’s more iconic imagery.
As can be expected from a Scott Derrickson joint, the visuals remain high capacity (especially the trademark Super 8mm sequences). The sound design is top notch and the camera work is confident. It’s a long movie, though, and some of the newer cast members feel underserved. (Also how many ’80s slang words do we need to cram into each conversation?) There are interesting visual moments peppered throughout, including the introduction of Carrie-like telekinesis into the BPCU, but they can feel disjointed within the larger story.
Black Phone 2 is about trauma, and how it can cling onto generations at a time. It’s a little slower, more deliberately paced than the original, but never feels like a sequel cash grab. Er, sequel cash grabber? Overall, it is a worthy successor that fans of the first one will enjoy.
