Black Phone 2 (2025) Review

The trouble with horror sequels built on trauma is that they often confuse escalation with depth. Black Phone 2 wants to go bigger, colder and louder than Scott Derrickson’s 2021 sleeper hit, relocating its horror from a suburban basement to a snowbound Christian camp and expanding its mythology beyond the simple, dreadful purity of the original idea.

Set several years after Finn’s escape from The Grabber, the sequel stars well. Finn, now older and harder, is struggling with the psychological aftermath of his ordeal, lashing out at others with a bitterness that suggests survival has come at a cost. His sister Gwen, meanwhile, remains cursed or blessed with prophetic dreams, her visions now pulling her towards Alpine Lake, a remote winter camp with a dark past and an uncomfortable connection to their family history. The Grabber, though very much dead, refuses to stay quiet, communicating through a payphone and proving that this particular evil is not so easily buried or burned.

The summer camp (though in this case, a frozen one) has a long horror pedigree, and Derrickson works to fuse elements of supernatural thriller with a story about inherited trauma and unresolved grief. What worked so well in the first film was its restraint. The Grabber was terrifying precisely because he was unknowable. Here, he talks more, appears more frequently, and paradoxically feels less threatening as a result.

Ethan Hawke remains committed, wearing frostbitten masks and snarling monologues with menace, but the character has drifted away from nightmare towards narrative device. Madeleine McGraw fares better. As Gwen, she carries much of the film’s emotional weight and brings conviction to a role that demands vulnerability and resolve. Mason Thames also does solid work as Finn, though his arc feels underwritten, particularly given the film’s interest in the lingering effects of violence.

Stylistically, Derrickson employs the same retro sounds and sights that worked so well in the first film. Synths resembling a twisted take on the Stranger Things soundtrack sit well in the 80s backdrop, and feel very much in-keeping with a film that borrows a lot from the seminal slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

Dream sequences are accentuated with layered film grain and Super 8 artifacts, giving the visuals that stuttering nightmarish quality that worked so effectively in The Black Phone and Sinister. A lot of the film is intentionally under-lit, creating a patchwork of shadows for The Grabber and the ghosts of his victims to lurk in.

Watching this in 4K UHD, the presentation is a clear step up from the standard release and arguably the strongest reason to revisit the film. Shot digitally with Super 8 in parts, the Dolby Vision grade handles the contrast between formats well. The grainy, flickering visions feel suitably abrasive against the clean, icy clarity of the camp exteriors. Black levels are deep without crushing detail, and the wintry palette gives the film a bleak, bruised look that suits its themes. The Atmos mix is effective rather than showy, using wind, creaking ice and distant echoes to build atmosphere, even if it rarely pushes the overhead channels particularly hard.

There are moments when Black Phone 2 threatens to become something genuinely terrifying. The showdown on the frozen lake is staged well, and Derrickson still knows how to frame empty spaces in a way that makes them feel watched. But these moments are diluted by sluggish pacing and plot mechanics that feel oddly hurried. Characters make questionable decisions, exposition is repeated, and the sense of urgency never quite materialises. The first film smuggled modern horror sensibilities into a Seventies wrapper. The sequel does the opposite, embracing Eighties horror logic in all its bluntness, and the result feels less like homage and more like creative backsliding. Of course, this is likely something that fans of the original (like myself) will be willing to tolerate in return for some more sensational action sequences.

Black Phone 2 is good fun and justifies its own existence by taking the audience on a very different adventure, and as a 4K package it is polished and well-supported with extras. But as a film it lacks the raw, choking intensity that made the original resonate. Let’s hope it’s the last time we hear the phone ring for this franchise.

Movie Rating:

Black Phone 2 is out to own now and can be bought from all good retailers, including Amazon.

Black Phone 2 trailer