‘Black Phone 2’ Review — Hell Is A Time Machine On Ice Skates
Four years after Finn Blake killed The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), Black Phone 2 finds Finn (Mason Thames) and his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), struggling with daily life. Finn is traumatized, gets into fights at school, and uses weed to manage his anxiety.
Gwen seems to adjust better, managing social life and a budding romance with Ernesto (Miguel Mora). Yet, she faces nightmares and sleepwalking, and her dreams now involve children being murdered.
Gwen dreams of a phone call from a girl at a Christian youth camp in Alpine Lake, where their mother once worked. She believes if she and Finn get jobs there, they’ll find answers. The Grabber appears in Gwen’s dreams and haunts Finn through broken pay phones, pushing them to stop him permanently.
The Black Phone is based on a 2004 short story by Joe Hill. Co-writer and director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill (Sinister, Doctor Strange) had no intention of pursuing a sequel unless the first film was a success, and said sequel was done with Joe Hill’s blessing. The Black Phone made over $161 million on a $16-$18 million budget, and Hill not only encouraged Derrickson and Cargill to make the sequel but also pitched the original idea for Black Phone 2.
The sequel struggles with coherent logic, as its dream sequences lack clear boundaries. Early in the film, Gwen interacts with a girl from the past, highlighting the film’s disjointed timeline: present-day events are set in 1982, while the Alpine Lake scenes unfold in 1957. The film relies too heavily on time-jumping visions and leans on Gwen’s powers as a catch-all plot device, diluting the story’s credibility.
Like most Derrickson/Cargill films, Black Phone 2 leans heavily into the supernatural. The Black Phone dealt with the ghosts of dead children contacting Finn via the black phone in The Grabber’s basement, while Gwen had visions of their deaths. But The Grabber was just a dude who had a thing for killing kids in the physical world.
The sequel abandons restraint and shifts fully into chaotic supernatural territory. The Grabber blames Finn for his death and for making him kill his brother, so he invades Gwen’s dreams to torment them both. This dream logic is inconsistent and undermines the film’s tension, making the threat feel arbitrary rather than earned.
The film’s major letdown is its lack of scares. The Grabber exudes menace when he first appears to Gwen, slipping in and out of shadows. The scene with Ernesto, Gwen, and Finn driving to Alpine Lake during a snowstorm stands out for its slow-motion, flares piercing the darkness, and tense uncertainty.
The Grabber remains the film’s highlight, though underused – likely because he died in the first film – making scenes without him lack impact. Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw give strong performances with Thames projecting protective big brother energy while hiding his true feelings.
The Black Phone was Finn’s film; the sequel is Gwen’s. McGraw remains sharp-tongued and smarter here. Unable to avoid sleep, she learns to defend herself in her dreams. Ethan Hawke appears briefly but is memorably unsettling, delivering haunting lines like, “Fear is just a warmup,” and “I am a bottomless pit of sin.”
You feel the film’s nearly two-hour runtime. Gore peaks with the scene where a kid’s head is nearly severed, but long dull stretches follow. Jeremy Davies, playing Gwen and Finn’s father Terrence (Jeremy Davies), disappoints; his scenes suffer because he can’t match the cast’s talent.
Black Phone 2 delivers on gore and atmosphere, and Ethan Hawke remains a standout as a disturbing killer. However, the convoluted, illogical plot favors A Nightmare on Elm Street-style homage over a coherent story. Sentimental scenes overstay their welcome, muddying the film’s impact.
The final act, featuring The Grabber on ice skates, is so outlandish it nearly derails the film. This bizarre choice will either be seen as wild originality or as proof that the story has lost all seriousness and coherence.
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Black Phone 2 (2025), Universal Pictures
PROS
- The Grabber and Ethan Hawke are still awesome
- Mason Thames' and Madeleine McGraw's performances drive the film
- A thick, disturbing ambiance that never wavers
CONS
- The story gets really dumb at times
- Emotional sequences drag on too long
- A finale that feels rushed
