Image Source: Universal Pictures | Reading Time: 6 minutes
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Release Date | October 17, 2025 (USA) |
| Director | Scott Derrickson |
| Distributed By | Universal Pictures |
| Writers | C. Robert Cargill, Scott Derrickson, Joe Hill |
| Cast | Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke, Madeleine McGraw, Demián Bichir, Jeremy Davies, Miguel Mora |
| Runtime | 1 hour 54 minutes |
| Age Rating | R (Restricted) |
| Genre | Horror, Thriller, Supernatural |
| Budget | Estimated $30-35 Million |
Review:
When a horror film manages to crawl under your skin and leave you genuinely unsettled long after the credits roll, you know the filmmakers have achieved something special. The Black Phone 2 doesn't just answer the lingering question of whether this story needed continuation—it boldly reshapes the nightmare into something far more ambitious and terrifying than its predecessor dared to imagine.
Director Scott Derrickson returns alongside co-writer C. Robert Cargill to expand the sinister mythology established in the 2021 original. This time, however, they've crafted a supernatural thriller that transforms The Grabber from a grounded serial killer into something far more menacing—a vengeful spirit whose malevolence transcends death itself. The result is a spine-chilling experience that successfully evolves the franchise while honoring the atmospheric dread that made the first film such a terrifying success.
Set several years after Finney Shaw's harrowing escape from The Grabber's basement, the sequel shifts its focus to his younger sister Gwen, brilliantly portrayed by Madeleine McGraw. While Finney, now seventeen and played with haunted intensity by Mason Thames, struggles with PTSD and survivor's guilt, Gwen's psychic abilities have grown exponentially stronger. Her tormented visions lead the siblings—along with Gwen's boyfriend Ernesto—to Alpine Lake, a remote winter camp concealing decades of dark secrets tied to their family's tragic past. What begins as a search for answers quickly spirals into a desperate fight for survival when The Grabber's supernatural presence awakens, more powerful and vengeful than ever before.
What distinguishes The Black Phone 2 from typical horror sequels is Derrickson's refusal to simply replicate the claustrophobic tension of the original film. Instead, he boldly reimagines the threat by trading the confined basement setting for the vast, unforgiving isolation of a snow-covered landscape. The frozen wilderness of Alpine Lake becomes a character unto itself—beautiful yet hostile, serene yet suffocating. Cinematographer Par M. Ekberg captures this duality masterfully, creating stunning wide shots of pristine snowscapes that somehow feel more claustrophobic than any basement ever could. The blinding whiteness offers nowhere to hide, and the numbing cold mirrors the emotional frost that has settled over the traumatized Shaw siblings.
The film's visual storytelling reaches its most innovative heights in Gwen's nightmare sequences, which Derrickson shoots using grainy Super 8 footage that evokes the unsettling home movies from his earlier masterpiece, Sinister. These dream sequences don't just look different—they feel authentically wrong, like cursed recordings discovered in a forgotten storage locker. When Gwen answers the spectral black phone in her visions and hears her deceased mother's voice echoing across decades, the film taps into something profoundly disturbing about inherited trauma and the inescapable nature of family darkness. It's in these moments that The Black Phone 2 transcends genre conventions and touches on something genuinely profound about how pain echoes through generations.
Ethan Hawke returns as The Grabber, delivering a performance that somehow manages to be even more chilling than his already iconic turn in the original. Working behind his character's grotesque mask collection, Hawke conveys menace through body language alone—a twisted, skating figure gliding across frozen lakes with impossible grace, or a lurking presence that materializes from shadows with predatory patience. His physical transformation into this supernatural entity is mesmerizing and horrifying in equal measure. Meanwhile, McGraw carries the emotional weight of the film with remarkable maturity, portraying Gwen's evolution from frightened child to determined warrior with nuance and authenticity. Thames matches her intensity, showing us a young man whose anger at the world barely conceals his deep-seated fear that the nightmare might never truly end.
The supporting cast adds crucial depth to the narrative. Demián Bichir delivers a standout performance as Mando, the camp supervisor whose own connection to the location's dark history gradually reveals itself. His portrayal brings gravitas and unexpected emotional resonance to scenes that could have felt purely functional in less capable hands. The film also benefits from Miguel Mora's grounded turn as Ernesto, whose relationship with Gwen provides necessary moments of warmth and normalcy before the horror inevitably crashes back in. These quieter character moments serve as essential breathing room between the film's increasingly intense supernatural set pieces.
Derrickson orchestrates several sequences that rank among the most inventive and genuinely frightening horror moments in recent cinema. A kitchen confrontation defies the laws of physics as The Grabber's power manifests in reality-bending ways that will leave audiences breathless. Another scene set inside a phone booth surrounded by an endless snowy expanse uses spinning camera work to create disorientation and dread in ways that feel fresh despite the well-worn cabin-in-the-woods setup. The film's extended climax on the frozen lake combines practical effects, digital enhancement, and pure directorial vision into something that feels both classic and contemporary—a love letter to 1980s horror that never feels derivative or cheap.
While The Black Phone 2 succeeds admirably on multiple fronts, it occasionally stumbles under the weight of its own ambition. A lengthy mid-section dedicated to exposition threatens to derail the momentum as characters explain connections and backstory that might have been more effectively revealed through visual storytelling. The film works best when embracing nightmare logic over rational explanation, and these explanatory passages feel unnecessarily literal in a story that thrives on ambiguity and dread. Additionally, at nearly two hours, the runtime could have been tightened by ten minutes without losing any emotional impact or narrative coherence.
Yet these minor flaws cannot diminish what Derrickson and his team have accomplished. The Black Phone 2 stands as proof that horror sequels can expand their universe meaningfully rather than simply repeating what worked before. By transforming The Grabber into a more mythological threat while keeping the story grounded in the Shaw siblings' emotional journey, the film creates a bridge between psychological horror and supernatural terror that few films manage successfully. It's a movie unafraid to traumatize its characters and challenge its audience, delivering genuine scares alongside thoughtful meditation on grief, guilt, and the courage required to confront the darkest parts of our past.
For fans of intelligent horror cinema that respects its audience's intelligence while still delivering visceral thrills, The Black Phone 2 represents essential viewing. It confirms Scott Derrickson's status as one of contemporary horror's most visionary directors and establishes this franchise as having significant potential for further exploration. Just make sure you watch it with all the lights on—and maybe keep your own phone turned off, just in case it starts ringing with a call you definitely don't want to answer.
"The phone's been ringing for you, Gwen. Are you brave enough to answer?"
Trust us—you'll want to pick up this call. The Black Phone 2 is ringing, and this is one conversation you won't forget. See it in theaters before The Grabber calls for you.
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