Black Phone 2 review
The Black Phone moves into the 80s. Kind of.
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Black Phone 2
Directed by Scott Derrickson
Screenplay by C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson
Starring Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke, Madelaine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, Arianna Rivas, Miguel Mora and Damian Bichir
Black Phone 2 Review
Black Phone 2 keeps a consistent tone with the 2022 movie it serves as a sequel to. That’s good news for people who really liked what The Black Phone had to offer. It’s not great news for making every component of this sequel work, however. Director Scott Derrickson returns with filmography favorite Ethan Hawke in tow…as well as the surviving players from the original. Hawke gets to chew some scenery and devour some monologues. The rest of the cast excels in a new setting as well. It’s Derrickson that struggles to find a compelling way to marry his sequel to its new ideas.
Finney (Mason Thames) and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) are dealing with the fallout from The Grabber’s (Ethan Hawke) rampage a few years earlier. The Grabber may be dead…but he’s found a way into Gwen’s dreams. A connection to their deceased mother draws them to a local Christian Youth Camp. The secret to defeating The Grabber is hidden there somewhere…if they can survive him in the afterlife.
Right off the bat we should just get to the elephant in the room. Black Phone 2 takes a lot of ideas from A Nightmare on Elm Street. There’s nothing wrong with that. God knows no one else has been using them. There hasn’t been a Nightmare movie in 15 years. It’s been a lot longer than that since anyone has cared about one. Given Black Phone 2’s 1980’s setting…its pivot towards 80 slasher ideas (it’s set at a camp for Pete’s sake) invite comparison. Which isn’t a great thing for Black Phone 2. Not because it can’t measure up to plenty of Freddy or Jason movies…because Scott Derrickson seems totally uninterested in leaning into them. While the story concepts have moved into the 80s…Derrickson’s direction remains stuck in the 70s.
The Black Phone was a slow but effective movie. Black Phone 2 is also slow…but it’s much less effective. The pacing may fit what the first movie was…but it doesn’t fit what the second movie wants to be. There are a few standout sequences here. They usually involve Gwen’s journey through her dreams. As much as The Black Phone was about Finney…Black Phone 2 is about Gwen. Which is a good thing because she was always the better character. Unfortunately, A Nightmare on Elm Street doesn’t play as well when it’s paced like The Black Phone.
You end up with a movie whose first half is interesting…whose characters you care about…and whose drops into Nightmare territory serve as the clear highlight. The build is strong. It’s slow…but it works. Then the second half of Black Phone 2 arrives…and it doesn’t. The story runs out of ideas around the halfway point. The pace never picks up to make the ones that it has work as well as they should either. Finney and Gwen (and a love interest for the latter) head to the camp to find out why it’s invaded their lives. They discover connections between The Grabber, their mother, and some dead kids from decades ago. That’s all fine and well. When Black Phone 2 needs to find a way to tie these together in a compelling and exciting way…it retreats back into its patient (read: slow) way of telling a story.
When the third act finally rolls around…you can’t help but feel there has been a missed opportunity for some exciting moments if nothing else. The dream sequences work very well…until Black Phone 2 decides to slow those down as well. They become a vehicle for exposition instead of the dangerous and threatening scenes they began as. The story is fine…but it isn’t fine enough to fill nearly two hours with very little action. What the movie chooses for its climactic battle is…well…I don’t want to call it absurd, so I’ll just say lackluster and let you see it for yourself.
This review has skewed more negatively than the movie probably deserves. It’s a great looking movie with a solid story and great performances. It just never gets out of first gear. I know that is a hallmark of Derrickson’s horror resume…but it doesn’t fit everything. The more interesting stuff Black Phone 2 tries to introduce…the more it stands out that Derrickson’s style doesn’t match it. If you are a fan of the original movie…you’ll enjoy catching up with these characters, gaining some new lore, and finding the same vibe you liked the first time. If you were looking for a story that tries something different…you’ll get that too. You just won’t get it delivered in a way that maximizes what it could have been. And it will run out of steam before the end.
Scare Value
Given the supernatural aspects of the original story…Black Phone 2 finds a reasonable excuse to continue a story that could have easily been a one off. These characters are worth revisiting…and it’s an aesthetically interesting movie. The content doesn’t always match the tone, however. It also runs out of ideas right when it should be leveling itself up. Regardless, what’s here is worth a look. A fine sequel that evokes other movies while paying off its own.
2.5/5
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