Scott Derrickson have made millions on the unnecessary emptiness between fragments of film cereals. The horror films made by the director with the screenwriter C. Robert Cargill – “Sinister” and “the black phone” in particular – has used the aesthetics for Super 8 Film to create a suggestive aura of supernatural threat. “The black phone 2“Is no exception, with cereals so close in certain sequences that the actors are reduced to ghostly silhouettes. It is an effective technology, which is probably the reason why Derrickson continues to use it.
Super 8 (and modified Super 16) sequences in “The Black Phone 2” gives the film its most terrible images: fragmented shots of red feathers that sprinkle the snow around a child’s abandoned parka and thick, viscous blood flowing from a tree stump in the frozen forest. These are all echoes – some prophetic, others from the past – who come back in the dreams that Gwen experiences (Madeleine McGraw), younger sister to Finy (Mason Thames), siblings who were also in the middle of the original “The black phone.”
Finney won at the end of that movie and sent child-snug serial killer The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) with the help of ghosts from his former victim and one of Gwen’s mental visions. But it does not matter in a horror movie, especially a supernatural. And so the taker is back and calls beyond the grave to threaten Finney with not only his own passing, but also his little sister. Hawke also returns, mumbles and grinding behind a rubber mask (and eventually some awesome dentures). And thankfully, as there are some thick blocks of dialogue to get through here, and only one actor to Hawke’s caliber could make them work.
Part of the charm of the “Black Phone” movies is that their threat is anachronistic. The number of salary phones in the United States has fallen sharply since the mobile revolution, making it almost impossible for a dismantled malicious spirit to terrorize any erroneous children through telephone booths today. “The Black Phone 2” takes place in 1981, a fact that is almost impossible to forget with the repeated, flashing era-specific references and lines of a character that is “kills than disco.”
The action of both films is also due to their teenage persons being relatively unsurprising, an as anachronistic touch as “The Black Phone 2” shares with its most obvious inspiration: “A nightmare on Elm Street” films. Specifically, Gwen takes a leading role in this film similar to Patricia Arquettes character in “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”, but with the staff in a snowed Christian summer camp in the back rather than the patients at a youth psychiatric hospital.
These include Ernesto (Miguel Mora), the younger brother of a character from the previous film (also played by Mora) and Gwen’s innocent puppy love. Camp supervisor Armando (Demián Bichir), which provides a living link to macabre events that occurred there decades earlier; and Mercedes (Arianna Rivas), Armando’s horse brother’s daughter. Try to add some Latinx style to the dialogue in largely fizzle. But, just like Hawke, Bichir does a heroic job with the burden to explain the film’s Lore-a material function in a backstory-heavy effort like this one.
Most of the deficiencies in “The Black Phone 2” can be traced back to their script, from some of the more critical dialogue to the difficult pieces of exposure and a thematic thread confirming the presence of heaven and hell, and therefore the validity of the Christian faith. This is not an unusual message for a horror movie – the entire possession subtract is built on Catholic dogma, as is the “Conjuring” series. What makes it worth criticizing here is the inconsistent way in which it is applied, and sets up a more thought -provoking grip on the hypocrisy of organized religion just to abandon it when it is time to send the grip back to hell.
Derrickson acquits himself more admirable and adds blood -soaked style not only to the film’s analog sequences but also the digital. A scene where Gwen is terrified of the appearance of three boys murdered at the campsites as early as 1957 is a masterclass in creative gore effects, slices a boy’s head in half diagonally on a window pane, looking at the slip to the ground and leaving it to sput and jerk when blood pools are left. The film is also based on a famous effect from “A nightmare on Elm Street”, spinning bodies and throws them around like puppets whose puppet has an attack when the characters fight against the invisible enemy in Gwen’s dreams.
Still, a complaint that is also common for contemporary horror movies on “The Black Phone 2” is because all the best things about this movie come from other films, whether they are the creative team’s previous efforts or iconic titles from previous decades. (It’s not just “a nightmare on Elm Street”, either; the majority of the action takes place because the characters are snowed in an isolated place, making comparisons with “the shining” equally inevitable.) These elements are fun, which is precisely why they are recycled here. And maybe it’s good enough for a horror sequel. But good enough will never be more than just that.
Rating: B-
“The Black Phone 2” premiered at Great party 2025. Universal Pictures release it in theaters on Friday 17 October.
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