‘Black Phone 2’ – Review
Four years ago, Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone slithered its way into cinemas, gifting audiences one of the most unsettling horror villains of the decade in Ethan Hawke’s mask-clad serial killer known only as The Grabber. Now, the terror rings again. Black Phone 2 arrives as a chilling, synth-soaked sequel that proves some nightmares don’t fade…they evolve.
Bad dreams haunt 15-year-old Gwen as she receives calls from the black phone and sees disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp. Accompanied by her brother, Finn, they head to the camp to solve the mystery, only to confront the Grabber — a killer who’s grown even more powerful in death.
Scott Derrickson reunites with author Joe Hill and star Ethan Hawke to dig deeper into the mythos of The Grabber, and the result is a bigger, darker, more supernatural horror story, one that doesn’t simply repeat the scares of the first film, but twists and expands them into something far more sinister.
Set in 1982, the film picks up with Finney (Mason Thames), the lone survivor who escaped The Grabber’s basement hell. But survival hasn’t brought peace. Finney is still being hunted, if not in body, then in memory. He’s restless, angry, slipping into violent outbursts as the trauma keeps its claws in him. Meanwhile, his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) continues to be haunted by chilling visions, visions that point to the origins of The Grabber’s evil.
When Gwen’s dreams lead the siblings to the eerie Alpine Lake Camp: a faded summer retreat holding more secrets than smiles—the film shifts from suburban terror to a wintry, isolated, emotionally charged ghost story. The camp becomes a character in itself: abandoned cabins, icy docks, dark forest lines, and a history that refuses to stay buried. It’s the perfect stage for vengeance to rise from the cold.
Derrickson leans hard into 1980s horror styling here. Think fog-drenched nights, haunting analogue synth, gritty camera texture, killer silhouettes appearing where they shouldn’t be. The suspense isn’t loud or cheap, it creeps. It stalks. And when the jump scares come? They hit like a shovel to the ribs.
But the smartest and most compelling shift in Black Phone 2 belongs to Gwen. Madeleine McGraw steps forward as the emotional core and supernatural conduit of the story. Her psychic abilities become the narrative’s driving force, and watching her push back against a horror that wants to consume her is gripping, raw, and genuinely unsettling. McGraw delivers a performance that’s both tender and terrifying, cementing Gwen as one of the most interesting young horror protagonists of the moment.
And then there’s Ethan Hawke. If The Grabber was frightening before, he’s absolutely nightmare-fuel incarnate now. No longer a man, but a vengeful spectre dredged up from Hell itself, The Grabber returns as a demon wearing the memory of a monster. Hawke’s physicality, voice modulation, and twisted emotional texture make him horrifying to watch—you cannot look away. His mask, his grin, the quietness of his cruelty… It’s chilling in all the right ways.
Black Phone 2 doesn’t try to out-shout or out-shock the first film — it evolves it. It widens the lore. It deepens the emotional impact. It gives the survivors agency—and then tests that agency against a horror that refuses to stay dead.
With Halloween looming, horror fans are in for a treat. Black Phone 2 is cold, eerie, grief-stained, and deeply atmospheric; the kind of horror film that lingers like smoke in your clothes and whispers back to you after the credits roll.
Image: Universal Pictures
