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.