Black Phone 2 and the Return of the “Grabber” - The Review

From Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, Black Phone 2 offers a less usual narrative for what could become an important franchise: “burning through” sequel and prequel combined, immersed in an even denser and more horrific atmosphere.

The Grabber Returns, Between Past and Present

Set in 1982, the film opens a few years after the events of the first chapter. Transformed into a violent and angry individual, Finney (Mason Thames) has survived the child-hunting serial killer known as The Grabber. He has never overcome the trauma, continuing to hear its echo in the form of visual and auditory hallucinations, poorly attempting to exorcise it. The story here revolves more around his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), tormented by premonitory dreams and visions of victims devastated by the Grabber's fury.

She will be driven to travel to Alpine Lake, a youth camp in the mountains linked to her mother's past, who apparently died by suicide. Along with her brother and boyfriend Ernesto (Miguel Mora), the girl soon finds herself facing brutal confrontations with evil, all trapped in a battle that unfolds between ice and blood. Because the “Grabber” is more violent and sadistic than ever, because evil has not gone away, it has only changed form.

Black Phone 2 - Death in Super 8

Derrickson abandons the urban claustrophobia of the first, successful, film for a broader and more atmospheric horror. The snowy expanses are illuminated by a setting of lights and cold, spectral colors, with the signature of cinematographer Par M. Ekberg, lost in icy lands where fear sets terrifying ambushes, a battleground where not everything is of this world.

The director plays with the visual codes of '80s horror, blending the style and philosophy behind A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) with suggestions of sounds and images, in a growing tension that verges on splatter with mutilated faces and burned bodies. Gwen's visions are pure horror with a Super 8 aftertaste, a lividly grainy visual frame, separated from reality and thus even more spectral. What happens to her in the dream reverberates in reality, with echoes from Wes Craven's franchise and his “Dream Warriors.”

Black Phone 2 - The Frost is a Raging Fire

The malignant devours mind and body, its strength emerges from the ice and it is not at all easy to annihilate it. Accompanied in this film by an unexpected yet very welcome and well-placed Pink Floyd song, we discover the fate of the siblings' mother. The mutagenic form of the “Grabber” captures attention thanks to Derrickson's sensitivity and cinematic-musical culture and Ethan Hawke's skill.

What makes Black Phone 2 even more surprising are the underlying themes. The film intertwines supernatural horror with reflections on grief, faith, and guilt, unafraid to tackle spiritual questions. Gwen speaks with the Almighty, prays in dreams, and hears her mother's voice from the afterlife, in a dialogue that adds an almost mystical dimension to the plot.

Despite some didactic passages, Derrickson convinces with his overall vision, starting from the prologue which goes deep without shocking or forcing the issue. This creates a powerful contrast between light and darkness, the desire for redemption and the temptation to surrender to evil. Viewing is forbidden without having experienced the first film, avoiding the risk of headaches, confusion, and detachment.