Walking into the theater to watch The Black Phone 2, I was skeptical. I was honestly a bit confused on how they were going to connect the plot of the first movie to the second, when in the first movie, The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), was killed at the end of the movie by the protagonist, Finney Blake (Mason Thames). Walking out of the theater, I was pleasantly surprised by the film as a whole, and the plot.
The movie follows Gwen Blake (Madeleine McGraw), who is Finney’s younger sister in 1982. It focuses on how she gets subliminal and paranormal dreams, and in these dreams she sees dead children, The Grabber, and even dreams of her own deceased mother. Something I thought that they did extremely well in this movie was the cinematography. When Gwen’s dreams were shown, the shot would become blurry and grainy, as if you were watching it through old film, and you were in the dream with her. I thought that this was creative because it showed the shift between reality and her dreams, and it even made the shots more chilling. I genuinely was creeped out by Gwen’s dreams, since they were more graphic than I expected. They would make Gwen suffer from the dreams at the same time that Finney was also fighting his visions of The Grabber, which made the audience stressed out for both parties at once.
Additionally, I believe that the plot of this movie was well thought through. They had The Grabber come back as a ghost, through Gwen’s dreams and Finney’s visions. They did very obviously borrow this idea from the classic horror movie, Nightmare on Elm Street, where the killer, Freddy Krueger, is able to kill his victims through their dreams, so I did find the idea unoriginal and maybe even a bit overdone. The movie heavily focused on the backstory of The Grabber, working the audience along as Gwen figures out who his first victims are through her dreams. They included strong ties to the first movie through the repeated importance of the black phone/the black phone booth imagery, and they even featured the basement that was in the first movie.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie. I thought it was produced really well and that the plot was well thought through. My only criticisms would be that Gwen’s dialogue was corny and cringey at times, as she overused ‘80s slang, and that the comeback of The Grabber was a bit overdone, though I did think they redeemed themselves through the fun storyline and strong visuals. In all, I think a third movie would be overkill, and they should just leave it off here, as the second movie did tie off any loose ends and questions left by the first movie.
