The Black Phone 2 Dials Into the Afterlife — and Loses the Signal
Scott Derrickson's sequel to The Black Phone reaches for deeper meaning amid its ghosts and gore, but never finds the same chilling power.
By Randy Shulman on October 18, 2025 @RandyShulman
The Black Phone 2 is what might happen if A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th had a three-way with Ice Castles — and one of them popped out a baby.
That’s not to say Scott Derrickson’s crisply directed sequel to the 2022 box office hit The Black Phone — once again co-written with C. Robert Cargill, and starring Mason Thames as Finney Blake, Madeleine McGraw as his psychic sister Gwen, and Ethan Hawke as the child-murdering serial killer The Grabber — isn’t a good scary movie. It’s just not as good a scary movie as the first.
The story jumps through hoop after hoop — after motherloving hoop — to justify its premise, considering that The Grabber was very definitely killed by Finney at the conclusion of the first film.
Author's summary: The Black Phone 2 loses its chilling power.