“The Black Phone,” released in 2022, can not have its success overlooked, having brought in $161 million globally at the box office. Yet despite the original feeling like a complete, one-and-done story, Director Scott Derrickson returns with a sequel, “The Black Phone 2” (2025), which leans more toward a cash grab rather than a necessary continuation that adds to the story.
“The Black Phone” (2022), set in a quiet north Denver suburban neighborhood, follows a sequence of kidnappings committed by a mysterious masked man known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke). Finney Blake, played by Mason Thames, and his younger sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), live in a troubled household with their abusive, alcoholic father. Their deceased mother, who ended her own life, once experienced psychic dreams, a gift Gwen inherited. However, her father refuses to acknowledge his daughter’s dreams, beating her when she mentions having visions of the missing boys taken by The Grabber.
At school, Finney gets bullied but is lucky to have his friend Robin (Miguel Mora) there to defend him. When Robin becomes The Grabber’s next victim, Finney is left to fend for himself until he, too, gets abducted. He wakes up alone in a grimy basement with a disconnected black phone on the wall. The phone soon begins to ring, and at the other end, Finney can communicate with The Grabber’s previous dead victims. With each call, Finney receives clues and advice that help him survive. With the final call coming from Finney’s friend, Robin, it’s an emotional scene knowing Robin didn’t make it out alive, but his words of encouragement are enough for Finney to stand up for himself. Meanwhile, Gwen’s dreams guide her and the detectives closer to her brother’s location. In Finney’s last attempt to escape, he sets a trap for The Grabber, ultimately killing him and avenging his friend and the other victims.
With The Grabber defeated at the end of the first film, Derrickson faced the challenge of continuing a story where the main antagonist is dead. Not having many sensible options that would explain The Grabbers return, he chose a route that felt like an homage to Wes Craven’s “Night On Elm Street” films. Four years after surviving The Grabber, “The Black Phone 2” shows Finney fighting with lingering trauma.
Completely different from the first film, we see Finney take his anger out on anyone who questions his toughness and uses marijuana as a coping mechanism to deal with his trauma. However, rather than continuing to focus on Finney, this time, it is his sister, Gwen, who drives the narrative. Gwen begins to experience disturbing new visions — ones connected to their family history, specifically their mother.
Desperate to make sense of her dreams, she convinces her brother and Robin’s Older brother, Ernesto Arellano (Miguel Mora) — also played by the same actor who played Robin in the first film — to join them on the trip to the Alpine Lake Camp. What begins as a search for understanding quickly turns dark when Gwen’s dreams, once filled with visions of missing children, are overtaken by The Grabber’s presence. It quickly becomes clear that The Grabber is full of vengeance, now targeting Finney’s little sister and trying to kill her. No longer in the physical world, he only reaches her through her dreams, making it much harder for others to come to her aid. Forcing Gwen to confront this threat almost entirely alone while the others do their best to keep her awake and safe.
While “The Black Phone 2” has some genuinely impressive moments, it felt unnecessary at times. The first movie wrapped up nicely, giving Finney a satisfying ending. In comparison to the sequel, it stretches the story further and seems made solely to capitalize on the success of the first film. Hawke’s return, while enjoyable, raises the question of whether this movie is a cash grab or a Freddy Krueger rip-off, rather than a meaningful continuance.
That said, Gwen’s dream sequences are easily the strongest part of the film. The tension from the first film intensifies, placing the audience directly in Gwen’s perspective as she experiences terrifying visions. The shots were often a little out of focus and heavy with shadowy lighting, and the sound design was utterly eerie. Gwen’s encounters with The Grabber in her dreams were intensely suspenseful, giving the film a thrilling atmosphere. If you enjoyed the characters from the first film, the sequel is definitely worth watching to see their return and witness these haunting terrors.
