Black Phone 2 (2025) Review: Unnecessary, Uneven, Yet Still an Uneasy Haunt

There’s something fascinatingly self-aware about sequels that refuse to outdo their originals. Scott Derrickson’s Black Phone 2 doesn’t reach for higher stakes, instead trading fear for reflection. It’s a film more interested in the psychological aftermath instead of the escalation, intentionally choosing quieter explorations instead of the shameless route of a killer’s body count or their pleasures in murder. The result is an allegorical meditation that may not capture the primal horror or sleekness of The Black Phone, but it still resonates, offering a different kind of dread about what may lie in the netherworld beyond death.

Synopsis

Taking place a few years after the events of the first film, Black Phone 2 reunites us with Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who once again find themselves tormented by The Grabber, but this time, from a supernatural realm. When Gwen’s prophetic visions become more disturbing and blur the lines between reality and the dead, the siblings head to a Christian camp that’s supposed to help them solve the mystery that’s been haunting the young teen’s foresight. While doing so, they uncover a chilling connection between the camp and The Grabber, and confront him and their trauma one last time.

Review

I could be lazy and say that Black Phone 2 doesn’t work because it’s trying to reignite the spark that made The Black Phone work well. But really, it’s not trying to achieve that at all. In fact, it seems more than happy to leave the past in the past, and this is what keeps it afloat. Decay of reality, psychological isolation, and sinister supernatural influences: these themes that heavily characterized 1980s horror and mystery movies turn this film inward and allow it to explore new territory while grounding it in the same emotional grit and atmosphere of the era, and giving us enough familiarity that we still feel close enough to the characters. The gradual progression of trauma and time is palpable, and while it isn’t necessarily scary, it’s stranger and more personal — a sequel that didn’t want to cheapen grief with jump scares or nostalgia.

For all its sincerity, the writing is where Black Phone 2 feels the weakest. It’s clear that it was made for genuine affection for the characters, and you can feel Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s investment in Finney and Gwen’s redemption. But somewhere in building that emotional core and payoff, the pacing lingers too long, and the extreme emphasis on terrified expressions and inner turmoil doesn’t always land as hard as it should. Instead of us being moved, the film drags, and it sort of feels like we become outsiders looking in, not being trusted enough to feel and absorb. Really, it’s a little ironic coming from a film about psychic connections and spiritual terror.

Now that I’ve sat with it, I realize I wasn’t exactly jazzed about learning The Grabber’s backstory. Thankfully, the film doesn’t humanize him in any way, unlike some of those weird, exploitative true crime retellings, but tracing back his crimes to his first kills doesn’t reframe or deepen the story in any way. It’s more of an expansion for morbid curiosity, and for the satisfaction of stopping The Grabber from being a monster from the realm beyond. Ultimately, though, this also made me realize how unneeded this sequel was, and it would’ve been better if the serial killer’s whys and hows remained unknown. The more that was explained about him, the more the tension loosened, and the film started to feel like a Nightmare on Elm Street dupe.

Interestingly, the film accidentally staying broader with its identity actually helps it in unexpected ways, and is a great example of why too much backstory can be a sin. At its core, this sequel is a supernatural film, but its identity flirts with other subgenres that are both messy and compelling. There are times when it toys with becoming a religious, possession-focused horror, and others where it seems like The Grabber will be positioned as a sort of Michael Myers figure, a physical embodiment of evil that can never be stopped. While that tonal shift can feel like the identity was never fully fleshed out, it also works in the film’s favor. Never defining what The Grabber has become preserves unease, especially in the areas of the film that are overexplained. That abstractness also shows how easily figures like him become mythic — how they endure, even when the tangible being is gone, and how we unknowingly keep their power alive by imagining, retelling, and fearing them over and over again.

The visual blending of analog texture against the wintery Colorado backdrop (very à la The Shining BTW) is the perfect setup to take audiences into the 1980s, and plainly, it is just beautiful to look at. Between feeling like snuffy, evangelical-inspired found footage, and a hazy dream, it trades the tans, mustards, and beiges of the 1970s that colored the original for cold blues and washed-out browns, where any sense of golden warmth feels accidental and almost a sign of trouble or death to come. Even when the story stumbles, the film’s visual language stays consistent and sure of itself, and it’s easy to get lost in that alone if the siblings’ journey is not cutting it for you.

Thames and McGraw together are what truly anchor the film. Even if we don’t see as much from Thames this time around, his story lingers as the undercurrent, a ceaseless, eerie reminder of the boy who survived. That presence gives McGraw the space she needs to communicate her growth as an actress and shine though, and she shoulders the emotional weight of the story with ease. This time around, Gwen feels sharper and steadier, even as she battles between faith and fear. Unfortunately, everyone outside of the siblings isn’t used nearly as effectively. Some supporting characters exist purely for the continuation factor, challenge the identity of the story, or fade into the background without much consequence. Give or take a few faces, if anyone else were removed, it wouldn’t change the story in a significant way, which only highlights how much the film relies on McGraw and Thames to keep its heart beating.

Outside of the ghostly touches, Black Phone 2 touches on the slow, uncertain language of trauma, and how youths like Finney and Gwen were never given the right words to explain what followed them home after the terror was supposed to be done. Without getting too deep into a clinical diagnosis, PTSD was officially recognized in the DSM-III in 1980, just a few years before the sequel’s events were supposed to take place, yet the cultural hesitance remained and can be felt in every scene. The way the siblings’ father avoids hard conversations, and how Finney lashed out and shut the world out, and even how Gwen isn’t initially sure her dreams are visions, or just manifestations of what they experienced, reflect a time when children were expected to endure rather than process. Even after they’ve defeated their nightmares, we never see what becomes of them, which makes it easy to believe they simply learned to “beat on” like so many others of the generation.

As someone who really liked The Black Phone, I think it’s important to treat it and Black Phone 2 as entirely different things before you can properly assess the follow-up. Where the first lingered and made you angry for what happened to Finney and the boys, this one asks you to bask in the “What if?” — to watch the fallout of what happens if our monsters never really disappear. The ambition is interesting, even if the execution doesn’t work as smoothly as intended. Still, the sequel is not the worst thing to happen to the genre, and is actually an admirable, creepy-enough attempt to expand and wrap things up and bring closure where it wasn’t needed. And honestly, it’s unfair to dismiss it as just a popcorn movie because of the apparent sense of care behind it, even if it is missing that finesse and fear that made the first unforgettable.