The Black Phone 2 (2025)

  

  *THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST BLACK PHONE FILM*

    Well, after being blessed with some outstanding original horror movies, we're getting back to sequels again. Horror movie sequels can be tricky, sometimes they can really add onto a franchise and take it to the next level (Friday the 13th, Halloween, Insidious, and Scream to name a few) and other times it is simply a soulless cash grab simply aimed at capitalizing on the financial success of the first film (also Friday the 13th, Halloween, Insidious and Scream again). The Black Phone 2, while not a bad film, seems to fall more into the latter category.

    After watching the first Black Phone, I was blown away; more of a psychological horror than its sequel, the first film managed to blend serial killer and supernatural horror in way that was seamless and completely believable to the audience. The tension throughout the film practically held the audience captive as well as the main character, and Ethan Hawke's performance was truly chilling and helped make his murderous character "The Grabber" a household name worthy of a Fortnite skin (this generation's highest honor). Unfortunately, while this second film does dive headlong into the supernatural, it does not maintain that same sense of on-the-edge-of-your-seat psychological horror, at least not for me. 

    Focusing more on jump scares and a lot of monologuing, the second Black Phone movie picks up a few years later, however, whereas young Finn (Mason Thames) was the primary focus of the first film, he now takes a bit of a back seat to his younger, clairvoyant sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw). Obviously, the siblings are once again facing off against The Grabber, but this time he is more shades of Freddy Kreuger than John Wayne Gacy, and this results in mostly cheap scares with no real payoff. The movie mostly kept my attention, however, I believe this was mostly based off of goodwill from the first film, and unfortunately, this movie never quite approaches that same tension (they do keep talking about and showing scenes from the first movie, however, which only serves to remind me how much better that film was). 

    At the end of the day, if you are a horror fan, you will most likely find this movie entertaining enough if not somewhat forgettable. However, in my mind, I never really saw a reason for this movie to exist, and I was not convinced to alter my opinion after watching it. There are too many horror cliches and one-note characters and far-fetched "you didn't even realize this was connected all along" moments for this movie to really hit. Honestly, watching this film just made me want to rewatch the first one, which has significantly more Ethan Hawke (perhaps a huge reason why it was so much better). 

Rating: 6.5/10

One final slightly SPOILERY note on this film: 

I have to get this one off my chest... hypothermia just apparently doesn't exist in this film. Not one, but two characters are plunged deep into a completely frozen-over lake literally right after the worst blizzard since the 1940's and they didn't even show them huddling by a fire in a blanket or anything, they were just completely fine. Anyways...