Black Phone 2

This weekend, Black Phone 2, the sequel to the 2021 horror film The Black Phone, released in theaters. Black Phone 2 continues the story of Finny and Gwen as they travel to a winter camp known as Alpine Lake to uncover the mystery of the visions Gwen has been seeing in her dreams. I watched the first film a few weeks ago and thought it was very good so I was very excited to see how the second one turned out.

Overall, I thought that Black Phone 2 was a very good movie. I appreciate that they took the film in a bit of a different direction instead of doing a rehash of the original film. I like the fresh setting of Camp Alpine Lake. It gives a bit of an isolationist feel to it that reminds me of The Shining. The new setting also helps expand the lore giving a little bit more background on The Grabber as well as more details into the death of Finny and Gwen's mom. I also like how the movie lets Gwen be more center stage as she is the one that is seeing the visions and mostly has to deal with The Grabber. I think this was a wise movie as I don't know what the natural next step would be with Finny as the main character. With that being said, we do still get some good character work with Finny as we see the impact of his kidnapping had on him as he turns to smoking to numb the pain and just ignore what happened instead of try and move on. I like how The Grabber aspect of the story gives off a bit of Nightmare on Elm Street vibes as a lot of the movie takes place in dreams. I also like the dream aesthetics with the dream sequences feeling like old gritty film reels.

The only real complaint I had about this film is that it wasn't as simple and low key as the original. Part of what made the original so good was that it was a very small serial killer story and this film while still very good, takes a bit of a departure from that with a bigger story.

Overall, this was a solid follow up to the original film and while it isn't as good as the original, it still does a good job of continuing the story for these characters.

Score: 8.5/10 Grade: A- Recommendation: This is a must see horror film