This is one of those movies that only exists because the original was too successful to be left alone. Hollywood just can't resist milking the cow until there's absolutely nothing left to squeeze out.
The first movie was great: dark, tense, with a creepy yet somehow grounded atmosphere. The Grabber was terrifying because you didn't know everything about him. That mystery worked. That uncertainty made you uneasy in the best way.
And then comes Part 2...
It throws all of that out the window and turns into a half-baked mash-up of Nightmare on Elm Street and Stranger Things, just without the charm, the tension, or a real idea behind it.
This time it's not Finn in the spotlight but his sister Gwen, who starts having nightmares and visions of dead children. And somehow, someone thought it was a great idea to have the Grabber come back from hell (no joke) and haunt her dreams. So now it's half Freddy Krueger, half fantasy nonsense - except it's neither scary nor interesting.
The worst part, though, is that they try to explain the Grabber. They give him a backstory, almost turning him into some kind of tragic antihero. And in doing so, they strip away everything that made him compelling. The entire appeal of the first film was that you didn't know what made him so twisted.
Sure, some scenes look cool - the dream sequences are nicely shot, that grainy, foggy aesthetic is a bit reminiscent of Sinister. But it doesn't save the movie, because underneath, it's just hollow. The Grabber doesn't feel like a disturbing killer anymore, he feels like a parody of himself.
He stumbles around, can't kill properly anymore, keeps missing his targets, and the teens are literally mocking him. The menacing figure from Part 1 has turned into a guy in a mask who's just... sad.
And the script is full of holes. The dream logic, the connection to reality - none of it makes real sense. He could easily kill the characters, but he doesn't. Instead, he monologues, rambles, and disappears. It feels like the writers forgot the rules of their own world.
What annoys me the most: they force a backstory on him. That's the moment when most horror movies die. The second you explain evil, you take away its power. He was scary because you didn't understand him... now he's just another movie villain with trauma and unnecessary lore that no one asked for.
And of course, everything has to be bigger, flashier, and more action-packed, like always, when studios realize the first film worked. But in doing so, they lost exactly what made The Black Phone special: that quiet, cold fear, that feeling of helplessness. What's left is loud, soulless horror theater.
The movie isn't awful. It's competently shot, the acting's fine, and there are a few decent ideas. But it's completely unnecessary. The first one was closed, complete, and powerful. The second one is a textbook example of: "We didn't know when to stop."
A real shame.
