Black Phone 2

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.

You gotta be weary when you see some many 10 star and 1 star reviews.

This movie is your average ok sequel. Did it need to be made? No, but it was and I'm a horror fan so I'll watch it.

You get back story and the atmosphere is good. I left the theater feeling ehh.

So if you're a horror fan who liked the original then check it out, why not. If you never say the first one then skip this.

In the first film, The Black Phone, we followed young Finney (Mason Thames), who was abducted by the mysterious Grabber and held captive in a soundproof basement. His sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) desperately tried to find him, guided by her psychic visions and her fierce determination. It was a dark, claustrophobic thriller that combined supernatural tension with raw emotion and it worked.

In this sequel, Finn and Gwen are older and working at a winter camp; the same place where their mother once worked, and mysteriously died. Soon, they uncover chilling truths about their mother's past, and somehow, the Grabber is back, or rather, the idea of him is. He wants revenge on Finn by targeting Gwen.

The problem with The Black Phone 2 is that it never truly earns its fear. The tension, the dread, the eerie silence of the first movie are gone. Finn is grown up, confident and unshaken. Gwen, who once stole every scene with her emotional depth, feels out of place here. Madeleine McGraw is simply miscast; her character is supposed to be terrified, but she plays it too calm, too flat. If they're not afraid, why should we be?

Ethan Hawke's presence as the Grabber, the haunting figure that made the original so memorable, is frustratingly limited. He lurks around the edges of the story, appearing only long enough to remind us how great he was in the first film. When he finally gets a bit more screen time near the end, it's too late. The film has already lost its pulse.

By the final act, I found myself emotionally detached. Whether the Grabber killed Gwen or not didn't seem to matter anymore and that's the worst sin a thriller can commit: indifference.

There's a faint attempt to set up a Black Phone 3 and while that might excite some fans, it feels more like a studio decision than a creative one. The original film ended with quiet finality; this one ends with a shrug.

The first film was a tense psychological thriller with a slight supernatural element.

Black Phone 2 felt like a throw everything at the wall and see what sticks mess.

The Ernesto character had nothing to do and that story thread.coukd have been lost and helped bring the overly long 2 hour runtime down.

At most this should have been 90mins.

The direction was weird with overly long pauses in scenes that should have been a lot quicker given the situation the characters were in. This was especially noticeable in the scene between the father, son and daughter having a long pause discussion/argument about leaving the camp.

Borrowing from Nightmare on Elm Street in heavy doses only made my eyes roll.

If you enjoyed Black Phone, rewatch that and don't waste your time with this messy, unnecessary sequel.

Where to begin ? I had good hopes for this movie since watching the first and enjoyed it but this one just couldn't do it .

The pacing of the movie is very very slow. The movie can be split into two sections, talk and action. At times you will have long winded dialogue and character interaction that over stay their purpose and drag on and then you'll have your obvious "killer is here" moments for a bit where they show some violence and scares but it's all so predictable, you catch yourself figuring out what each scene is going to be really easily and there's no twists. "Oh, they're talking ? Expect nothing to happen for over 5 minutes" or "phone is ringing? Time for the horror parts" predictably.

Also, dialogue is just corny at times. Some of the things the "grabber" says just has no impact, very generic "I want to kill you!" or "dead is just a word" , I wish they could've led more to the movies name "Black Phone" and had the killer interact solely through the phone to communicate and more sporadically instead of this Nightmare on Elm Street manifestation.

The killer has become a joke . A once menacing, unhinged , man in a mask that you couldn't figure out has become a spoof version of Freddy Krueger that is utterly incompetent at killing anyone, at most a few scratches and bruises but everyone in this movie for the most part is actually quite fine . There are multiple instances of where he could kill someone and then it gets abandoned or the person survives, seriously?

At the end of the day , I stayed until the end but saw a least 4 or more couples leave the theater early for being to slow paced until it picks up the last hour or so of the film .

It felt as a weird mashup of Friday the 13th and Elm Street but none of the charm from Freddy and none of the terrifying fear from Jason.