It was always going to be a tall task to justify a sequel to the spine-chilling Ethan Hawke-led The Black Phone, which featured the breakout performance for Mason Thames.
No spoilers here, but it ends in a definitive manner that wraps up every storyline. Justifying a sequel — outside of another Blumhouse-produced box office hit — was an uphill battle, and even Black Phone 2 struggles to climb that hill.
Once it does, make no mistake; Black Phone 2 is a gnarly continuation of Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen's (Madeline McGraw) story. Hawke once again delivers a sinister performance, and the sequel gives The Grabber more depth.
Where it stumbles most is in its first hour. Black Phone 2 takes a slow-burn approach to its story, and the pacing of the film takes a hit as a result. Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's script heightens the supernatural elements from the first, and it places more emphasis on McGraw's Gwen, who's struggling with the psychic abilities she inherited from her late mom.
Black Phone 2 is uneven, but it's filled with good performances. Still, the first hour nearly sinks it before it can take off.
What's Black Phone 2 about?
Several years after the events of The Black Phone, life is not much easier for Finney and Gwen. You'd think escaping The Grabber's grasp and killing him would make you a hero.
However, high schoolers are gonna high school, and Finney has a giant target on his back. He's still reeling from the traumatizing events, smoking away his problems, and taking out his aggression on classmates who step out of line.
Immediately, Black Phone 2 makes a concerted effort to focus on its characters. Finney's trauma is a focal point of the sequel, but even he takes a back seat to Gwen.
It's an interesting choice, given how bankable a star Thames has become in the last year. He's more than capable of handling the emotional weight of Finney's character arc, and does a great job in the quieter moments of Black Phone.
Mason Thames takes a backseat
Thames gives a similarly emotional performance as Jamie Lee Curtis in the 2018 Halloween “requel.” For as long in the tooth as Black Phone 2 is, it could have given Finney even more time early on in the runtime to explore his trauma.
Instead, most of the first hour is devoted to Gwen's story. Yes, exploring her psychic abilities was the only natural option if a sequel to The Black Phone was going to work, but one could argue that it's too heavy-handed early on.
McGraw gives a good performance, but Derrickson and Cargill do her no favors with the repetitiveness of her scenes early on. There is a template for the scares in Black Phone 2's first hour. First, she begins dreaming of one of The Grabber's victims, they deliver a clue regarding The Grabber, and then Finney finds her sleepwalking, waking her up.
Eventually, this leads to Black Phone 2's main plotline. Gwen has hallucinations of her mom when she was younger. Their phone calls — which occur in her sleep — emanate from a Christian youth camp that their mom, Hope (Anna Lore), worked at.
This leads Finney and Gwen — along with the latter's budding romantic interest, the brother of one of The Grabber's victims, and Finney's friend Ernesto (Miguel Mora) — to the camp in Alpine Lake.
Of course, a heavy winter storm hits right as they travel there. So, they are stuck there as Gwen's dreams intensify, and she begins seeing The Grabber in her dreams.
Ethan Hawke's Grabber is scarier than ever
Getting to Alpine Lake is when Black Phone 2 is allowed to have fun. Every coherent story needs exposition, but Black Phone 2 gets bogged down in the mystery in its first hour. The Grabber finally reemerges once the kids are in Alpine Lake, and the movie gets significantly better from this moment on.
“Hell isn't flames, Finney,” The Grabber tells Finney. “It's ice.”
Hawke's performance as The Grabber is ramped up in the sequel. He was always a sinister character, but Hawke is allowed to go to new extremes, since the character is technically dead.
He has always had a good rapport with Thames, and that continues in Black Phone 2. They don't share as much screentime in the sequel, but they make a mark when they do.
Should you watch Black Phone 2?
Is Black Phone 2 overly reliant on its performances? It does seem that Derrickson relies on them to cover a weak script that he wrote with Cargill.
A sequel felt inevitable once the first movie made over $160 million. For those that don't know, The Black Phone is based on a short story written by Joe Hill. So, there wasn't a lot of lore to draw from.
In turn, Derrickson and Cargill had to conjure another story out of thin air. Sometimes, Black Phone 2 feels like a straight-to-DVD sequel; other times, it actually does fit in the universe. There are some interesting ideas played with by the script, such as the religious motifs, but not enough time is spent to fully flesh them out.
The tension is strong once it gets going. The first hour teeters on unwatchable, due to the repetitive nature of it. Clearly, Derrickson was trying to set up McGraw for a big role, and that will likely continue should a third movie be made.
Even once the second half starts, Derrickson and Cargill may have tried to get too cute with some of the twists. While they tie some of the loose threads from The Black Phone together, they may take too great a leap to buy into.
Black Phone 2 doesn't overcome all of the clunkiness its marketing implies. There are moments of brilliance, but it can't touch its predecessor. It would be reckless to make a third movie and risk further tarnishing the brilliant first movie, but that hasn't stopped Derrickson before.
Grade: C+
Black Phone 2 is in theaters.
