Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Scott Derrickson
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Demián Bichir, Miguel Mora, Jeremy Davies, Arianna Rivas
The Grabber is back for a cash grab in this sequel to 2021's surprise horror hit The Black Phone. Based on a short story by Joe Hill, that film seemed the very definition of a standalone one-and-done, complete with a cut and dried ending that seemed to clearly wrap everything up. So how has director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill managed to turn this into a potential franchise? By ripping off Wes Craven, that's how. Black Phone 2 is a rather shameless Nightmare on Elm St knockoff, with Ethan Hawke's The Grabber rejigged as a Freddy Krueger figure who lives on in the world of dreams, threatening to cross over into the physical realm to continue his crimes.
Set in 1978 Denver, the first movie took full advantage of that pre-helicopter parenting era to spin a tale of a serial killer preying on the city's children. Cast against type, the usually avuncular Hawke was convincingly menacing as The Grabber, and young newcomer Mason Thames (who now resembles Twin Peaks star Chris Mulkey) was a minor revelation as Finney, a young boy snatched by The Grabber and imprisoned in his basement. Finney outwitted and ultimately killed The Grabber with the aid of the spirits of the killer's past victims, who were able to communicate with Finney through a disconnected phone. Finney's younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) was also revealed to possess psychic powers.
This sequel takes place four years later, with Finney now a troubled older teen who keeps getting in fights at school. He still receives phone calls from dead kids, but he tells them he can't help and hangs up. Meanwhile Gwen has begun to receive similar calls and is experiencing horrifying lucid dreams that seem to be connected to a remote Christian camp. Seeking answers, Finney, Gwen and her boyfriend Ernesto (Miguel Mora) head to the camp, where they find The Grabber is hatching a plan to return from the dead.
The first movie suffered badly from tonal whiplash, with some goofy comedy jarring with the film's disturbing child murder theme. The comedy has been completely excised for this sequel, but what we're left with is a dour and depressing affair. A serial killer preying on young kids is a concept that just doesn't make for a fun night out at the movies, whatever way you spin it, and Derrickson doubles down on his gruesome imagery here. Most of us will gladly watch adult characters and even older teens get hacked and slashed six ways to Sunday, but seeing children butchered in such explicit fashion is just a bummer. If you're going to kill kids on screen it needs to be done in an over the top, cartoonish way, like that brat getting squashed by a falling piano in Final Destination: Bloodlines. Rehashing his Sinister shtick, Derrickson presents his gory flashbacks in grainy faux 8mm, which makes them all the more real. But this is a movie about a serial killer coming back from the dead via dreams, so it's just plain weird to strive for such a level of grisly verisimilitude. Had this been released in 1982 it would almost certainly have made the UK's Video Nasties list.
One of this sequel's biggest issues is that all the murders have already occurred before the point the story begins. Unlike Freddy, The Grabber doesn't actually kill anyone in his dream form, so for all of his creepiness there's a notable lack of existential threat. Absent are the inventive kills of the Elm St series, and Derrickson squanders the opportunity to inject some surrealism into his dream sequences. While played by competent young stars, the fresh-faced protagonists are a bland trio with no definable personalities. The result is a movie that fails to engage us on any level other than admiring some of its technical aspects (as off-putting as it is, the gore is impressively pulled off, while the teal and amber lighting scheme effectively replicates horror movies of the early '80s). This is a franchise that should have been kept off the hook.
Black Phone 2 is in UK/ROI cinemas from October 17th.
