Horror cinema’s graveyard of sequels proves it is one of the most putridly fertile genres to capitalize on successful films. We’ve had everything from planned sequels, justified sequels, surprise sequels, and unnecessary sequels. Sometimes 10 of them. Black Phone 2 sits somewhere in between “surprise” and “unnecessary”, giving audiences more of the now iconic Grabber played by Ethan Hawke, but also stranding him in a woefully pedestrian story that barely justifies resurrecting the dead slasher.
Brazingly daring to actually address the trauma that comes with surviving a near-death experience at the hands of a serial killer, Black Phone 2 starts off strong enough before it buries its head in the snow. Taking place 4 years after Finney Blake (Mason Thames) killed The Grabber, the story alternates between his struggles to adhere to a normal life in school and at home and his sister Gwen’s (Madeleine McGraw) disturbingly strange visions calling her to a Christian youth camp where their mother used to work. Little do they know that these hallucinatory breadcrumbs are being laid out by The Grabber’s spirit, waiting in her dreams with axe in hand.
Yes, this is very much a setup straight out of A Nightmare on Elm Street sequel territory, and whether or not it could be considered a love letter or a rip-off, it is without doubt the most successful aspect of Black Phone 2. Gwen’s visions of children being brutalized by an unknown assailant (though it’s quite obvious who it is) are pure nightmare fuel and rivals the disturbing imagery from director Scott Derrickson’s own horror masterpiece Sinister. Like in that 2012 film, Derrickson makes striking use of Super 8 film to terrifying effect. Here, he and cinematographer Pär M. Ekberg are especially creative, as the dream sequences and hallucinations are rendered in rough, grainy Super 8 that not only helps distinguish the dreamscapes from reality but also lends a hellish quality to the horrors on display.
Aided by heavily distorted sound design and throbbing 80’s tinged music from Atticus Derrickson, the film’s horror setpieces are memorable and downright scary. However Black Phone 2’s odd focus on familial unity and religious fortitude towards the second half of the film places the horror in a frustrating middle ground rather than having it lead the story to a satisfying climax. As great as Ethan Hawke has proven to be as The Grabber, he never gets to go full Freddy Krueger on the campers. Given that we are dealing with the realm of dreams, The Grabber is quite tame when using his imagination. One striking scene in the camp kitchen provides a glimpse at the possibilities, but instead Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill are more interested in the mystery of Gwen’s psychic abilities and the clichéd way she’ll stop The Grabber from killing her.
Though it is bold of the filmmakers to focus on a different character and her experiences from the previous film, Finney’s battle with trauma is lazily lumped into an arc that is simply not as interesting as what the film had teased in the beginning. Finney’s trauma becomes incongruous with Gwen’s search for meaning in what becomes her fight against The Grabber. The story attempts to manufacture a sort of crisis of faith which Gwen needs to overcome, but the filmmakers provide no justification as to why the film shifts themes so abruptly. It simply feels wrong to ignore Finney’s struggles for so long only to be brought back into focus in an oversimplified and trite way towards the end.
The film also features a handful of forgettable characters, amongst them a wasted Demián Bichir whose sole purpose is to give pep talks masquerading as character development and exposition dumps when the story stumbles on itself. The rest of the camp staff are just there to reinforce the film’s lazy and simplistic Christian themes. They don’t even work as proper cannon fodder for Hawke, a true missed opportunity given that the dead Grabber design looks amazingly macabre and the practical effects shine in all his scenes. Shame that he showed up for a lackluster dream that could’ve been a true nightmare.
English (US) · 