A small town, a quiet neighborhood, and unsuspecting neighbors — the perfect setup for horror.
The Black Phone 2 builds on the eerie normalcy, preying on the vulnerability of children as a means for dominance and power. The film integrates psychological horror with supernatural suspense, truly conveying the gory reality of uncomfortable controlled settings and seclusion from the outside world.
The original Black Phone focused on Finney Blake’s abduction as he falls victim to the perfect serial killer backstory. The Grabber, a sadistic killer, keeps Finney trapped in his soundproof basement whose victims communicate through a disconnected rotary phone. This concept grounds the horror in grief and guilt, themes that the sequel revisits with more emotional weight.
Four years later, Gwen begins having frightening visions that tie to a series of murders at a remote winter camp. On a hunt to reveal the truth, joined by her brother and a friend, she explores the site only to find the horror is no longer human.
The shift in perspective between reality and the paranormal creates a bloodful setting, increasingly focused on gore, jumpscares, and loud audio to leave the viewer on edge. Its focus clearly sets the film as less realistic, yet makes it enticing and fitting to the horror genre norm as the sequel consistently strikes you with its gruesome visuals. “The film is similar to” Nightmare on Elm Street. He only shows up in their dreams, depicted through the lens of a VHS camera making it even scarier and more intense,” Carlos Perez, a senior, said.
Similar to Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Grabber blurs the line between reality and dreams, turning sleep into a space of terror. Yet unlike Krueger’s sadism, this film frames the dream world as a manifestation, inherited from their mother’s death and Finney’s past abuse.
Although the sequel focuses on intensifying the supernatural plot, it weakens the original concept by straying away from the dark environment created by the abductions in the first film. Not only does it shift the overall tone of the films, but transfers the center of attention from Finney to Gwen.
In an attempt to intensify the maturity level through Gwen’s graphic visions, Director Scott Derickson relies on Gwen to be the film’s emotional anchor, essentially making her a main character. Gwen’s narrative is relatively centered around her Christian faith, where she emphasizes faith in action rather than religious doctrine. She finds strength in confronting the Grabber head on, demonstrating her courage and mental toughness, similar to that of King David in the bible as he defeated the warrior Goliath through his courage and faith.
The complexity of emotions makes the film powerful, but is too reliant on Gwen’s trauma and her gradual control over her psychic abilities. “There wasn’t enough focus on Finney and the writers attempted to balance keeping both siblings as main characters. It made the film very disorganized, leaving the viewers disillusioned,” Kellie Mena, a senior said. The sequel feels as though its writers were overly determined to incorporate every minor detail from the original film, resulting in a narrative that feels stretched and unfocused. While Gwen’s narrative explores her personal lore, its structure diverges heavily from the original plot that functions more effectively as a standalone film.
Failure to further explore Finney’s trauma and his character development misses out on key ideas that directly follow the film. In the sequel, we briefly see Finney attempting to cope with his trauma derived from the abduction as he turns to substance abuse and picks fights with students at school to maintain his tough image. Beneath its supernatural horror, the movie quietly explores the lingering effects of trauma on youth. Finney’s self-destruction highlights how young people turn to different substances, encouraging aggression as a means of control. In an effort to numb feelings of hopelessness, the unhealed trauma doesn’t fade but instead mutates.
To serve as a corresponding sequel, it needed to further explore Finney’s distress. This approach would have allowed the filmmakers to craft a story that examines his psychological scars of survival, rather than relying solely on surface-level suspense.
The Black Phone 2 ambitiously expands its universe beyond the confines of the original film, but in doing so, it loses the psychological film that makes the original film so haunting. While Gwen’s story adds emotional depth and spiritual symbolism, the sequel’s emphasis on supernatural horror and violent imagery overshadows the dread that is defined in Black Phone. Ultimately, The Black Phone 2 succeeds in unsettling its audience through its chilling atmosphere and visuals, yet falls short of fully capturing the raw emotional horror that once made the film so compelling.
