Black Phone 2 is a scarier and more successful sequel, but its reinvention of the Grabber into a supernatural entity helps him become a modern Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. Blumhouse has made not just waves, but full-on tsunamis, when it comes to their impact on the horror genre. Over the past 15 years, Blumhouse […]
‘The Black Phone’
The original Black Phone is a solid horror film that pulls from one of literature’s most popular genre writers, Joe Hill. It also tells a story that was deeply personal for Derrickson. He retrofits his own painful suburban childhood in 1970s Denver, Colorado, onto Finney, which gives the film an undeniable emotional foundation. Derrickson has been vocal about Black Phone being a pivotal homecoming for him in his career and that it wasn’t a film that he wanted to make, but rather one that he had to make. That core connection is perhaps lacking in Black Phone 2. It’s a sequel that’s not so deeply steeped in its storytellers’ pasts. After being burned on Sinister 2, the prospect of a sequel that’s driven by box office returns, rather than passion, was the last thing that Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill were interested in doing. Yet, this makes Black Phone 2 all the more special due to how it takes advantage of this freedom and uses it to become a jack of all trades slasher showcase.
Curiously, Derrickson’s main interest in doing a Black Phone sequel revolved around Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) being older, and this shifting from a middle school story of self-discovery to a coming-of-age high school movie. The “reason“ to do the sequel had everything to do with these main characters and their plight, rather than it being reverse-engineered around the Grabber and how a sequel would be able to turn him into an even more terrifying and powerful threat. It’s perhaps part of the reason why this sequel works so much better than Sinister 2.
It’s a story that they wanted to tell and one that grew out of curiosity and love, not corporate synergy and IP management – although those elements were still present – that just happened to evolve its slasher mascot in the process. Black Phone 2 tells a story that’s built around the heroes, not the villain, the latter of which seems to so often be the case with Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Black Phone 2 uses the heroes’ growth as the catalyst to transform the Grabber into something stronger. “We’re doing it for the right reasons,“ attests Derrickson in Horror’s New Wave: 15 Years of Blumhouse when talking about the sequel. “I’m going to try to make a better movie than the first one. And it’s a different movie than the first one. There’s a reason to make this movie.”
The sequel is set four years later, which is done for practical storytelling purposes, but it seems significant that the film’s backdrop changes from the ’70s to the ’80s. The ’80s were a transformative decade for horror, where there was an unprecedented influx of supernatural elements in standard slasher fare. Not only were slasher icons like Jason Voorhees becoming reanimated zombies, but titles like Wes Craven’s Shocker were also trying to redefine the limits of horror villains. To this point, Gwen’s psychic ability and her deceased mother are haunting afterthoughts that hang over the film, even if they don’t experience a full arc of their own.
Black Phone 2 rather brilliantly develops these ideas in a way that retroactively strengthens the original movie. Black Phone 2 is such a natural extension of its predecessor that it’s a little shocking that it’s an original story and not based on some Joe Hill follow-up story (although he did help with cracking the film’s story). The first Black Phone combined a ghost story and a serial killer to great effect and also did something different. Black Phone 2 continues this trend through its embrace of supernatural elements, whether it’s Gwen’s growing psychic powers or what the Grabber has evolved into.
Ethan Hawke as The Grabber in Black Phone 2, directed by Scott Derrickson.
The original Black Phone presents the Grabber as a heightened and horrifying threat, but he’s still, for all intents and purposes, a grounded serial killer who is no different than someone like John Wayne Gacy. The Grabber’s death in The Black Phone was certainly absolute, but it wouldn’t be impossible to cheat its way out of this and keep him alive. Black Phone 2 is smart to avoid this temptation and instead evolves a simple serial killer into something much bigger, akin to what Freddy and Jason experience as supernatural creatures in their many sequels. This type of transformation can sometimes feel disingenuous, but it works so well in Black Phone 2.
The Grabber’s evolution into this undead harbinger of death is a more interesting direction for the character that also allows Hawke to get even riskier and more fearless in his performance. He’s no longer limited by reality. It’s an exciting mental shift for the Grabber. The visuals that Black Phone 2 builds to are unreal and dripping with Freddy’s ironic rage. In many ways, Black Phone 2 is the best Nightmare on Elm Street film since the ’90s. Black Phone 2’s Alpine Lake Camp setting definitely brings Friday the 13th to mind, but Gwen’s psychic powers and her attack on the Grabber are more specifically reminiscent of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. Even the manner in which the Grabber rips off pieces of his face in lieu of masks is a twisted evolution of his design that respects Jason’s decaying appearance.
(from left) Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) and The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) in Black Phone 2, directed by Scott Derrickson.
On some level, it’s kind of insane that the Grabber — a ruthless child murderer who abducts kids in a van — is a playable character in Fortnite who can emote alongside Sabrina Carpenter and the KPop Demon Hunters. Turning such a reprehensible character into a mascot of sorts can run the risk of glamorizing their behavior. The Grabber’s evolution into a wraith-like supernatural entity actually does his character some favors by turning him into a more intangible monster instead of a literal man who keeps kids in his basement. This helps move the Grabber away from his uncomfortable roots, much in the same manner that A Nightmare on Elm Street was able to do with Freddy. These adjustments, while minor, do so much to aid the Grabber’s brand and turn him into the mascot that Bughuul and M3GAN failed to be.
Black Phone 2 understands the power of brevity, and it condenses some complex ideas regarding the Grabber’s growth into a singular scene. A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th are the biggest reference points for the Grabber’s transformation. However, the sequence in which he reveals to Gwen that he’s “a bottomless pit of sin“ immediately brings Hellraiser to mind. The Grabber engages in a harrowing discussion of what Hell makes you, what it leaves behind, and the disturbing ways that it warps perception. The scene is short, but incredibly effective, and there’s enough there to get an entire film out of what the Grabber experiences in Hell. There are certainly worse ideas than Black Phone 3: The Grabber Goes to Hell.
Hellraiser may seem like a benign reference, but Derrickson’s debut feature was Hellraiser: Inferno. He’s able to crystallize and improve upon many of the same sinister ideas that he explored there 25 years earlier. All this discussion about Hell also swings back to the other extreme. Black Phone 2 is the rare horror movie that actively discusses Heaven, Hell, God, and the Devil, which is territory that was previously censored in Friday the 13th.
(from left) Finn (Mason Thames) and The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) in Black Phone 2, written and directed by Scott Derrickson.
In many ways, it feels like Derrickson and Cargill turn Black Phone 2 into the idealized versions of these slasher franchises that they wish they could have seen. In this sense, Black Phone 2 isn’t just an amalgamation of these beloved slasher franchises. It also incorporates so many personal touches that make it feel like the true synthesis of Derrickson’s career, whether it’s through its creative use of Super 8 footage through dreams to call back to Sinister or its conversations on faith and religion that course through The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Deliver Us From Evil.
In Horror’s New Wave, there’s an anecdote about the original Black Phone where Ethan Hawke remarks, “This is a horror film told from a point of view of love, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.“ Black Phone 2 bottles the emotions of its predecessor’s final scene and embraces this mantra even more in the sequel. This culminates in a satisfying, complete ending that would be a fitting place to end this story. However, the work that’s been done with the Grabber and his universe gives the impression that Derrickson and Cargill would be okay passing the franchise off and letting others take a stab at this iconic killer. There’s even a chance that Gunther, Gwen and Finney’s cousin from the in-universe “Dreamkill” segment from V/H/S/85, could team up with them all Dream Warriors style.
There’s too much to explore with the Grabber to keep him stuck in some watery purgatory like Jason. Blumhouse has some highly anticipated sequels on the way for Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Exorcist: Believer, and Ma, but the Grabber holds the most potential for a long-running franchise.
