Black Phone 2 is a sequel that I didn’t think we needed. Like, at all. But after its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025, I have to say that Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill have done it again. Directed by Derrickson and penned by the duo, this sequel is a wholly original concept, developing what happens next after Joe Hill’s novella, The Black Phone, on which the first film was based.
Set four years after the events of the first film, which ended with Finn (Mason Thames) killing and escaping the Grabber (Ethan Hawke), Black Phone 2 leans all the way into the supernatural and dreams. The sole survivor of the Grabber, Finn, still has the spotlight on him at school, and so does his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), whose visions helped recover the bodies of the abducted boys.
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Now, Gwen’s dreams have begun taking a shocking and more sinister turn. Marked by stark filmings switches to Super 8, Gwen’s dreams begin to cause her to sleepwalk, until she ends up answering the black phone in the Grabber’s basement one more time. As the visions become more disturbing, Gwen, Finn, and their friend Ernesto (Miguel Mora) follow the clues to solve the mystery of three boys who were murdered at Alpine Lake years ago.
Black Phone 2 reaches deep into the past for its original story.
A Christian sleepaway camp, Alpine Lake, has never been the same. Now, under new ownership from one of its former camp counselors, Armando (Demián Bichir), the three sneak their way into the now snowed-in camp under the guise of looking for a new job. While there, the evil grows, and Gwen’s life becomes increasingly in danger as the line between her dreams and the waking world begins to fall away, and the siblings are left to face the Grabber one more time while unlocking family secrets along the way.
For Finn, he’s fighting, he’s angry, and well, he has no friends outside of his sister and Ernesto, Robin Arellano’s younger brother (played by the same actor who played Robin in the first film). Deeply impacted by his time with the Grabber, Finn has started to isolate himself and reject any phone that rings.
But more strikingly, he’s behaving just like Robin. He’s speaking the way Robin said when he protected him in the first film, and it all just feels a little sad. Finn is stronger than he was in the original movie, and the days of being bullied are gone. Still, Finn isn’t exactly thriving; instead, he’s just trying to push past the trauma he experienced, and to him, that means ignoring it.
Mason Thames remains a stellar young actor who brings depth to Finn.
Ultimately, Mason Thames’s return as Finn is just as endearing as he was in the first film. Still, it’s his depth as we Finn struggle with the aftermath of surviving and defeating the Grabber that makes Black Phone 2 stand out. It’s easy to think our heroes live happy lives after they survive. But for C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson, that would be too easy. Instead, Finn is dealing with survivor’s guilt, he’s confused about how to continue, and although he survived, the scars it all left on him continue to ache.
When it comes to Gwen, she’s the one being bullied. Now older, Gwen is trying to understand her gift. She’s checking out books on dreams and experimenting with tarot cards (which Ernesto gives her, calling them loteria, which is honestly a funny cultural inaccuracy). It all leaves her open to being bullied by others. Gwen is still foul-mouthed and self-assured when confronting authority, but at school, she’s much quieter.
As Gwen’s dreams begin to take her deeper and have physical ramifications, she starts to see them as a curse. Where the younger Gwen wanted to embrace them, high school Gwen just thinks that she is going insane. Worried that she’s going down the same road as her mother, which ultimately ended in her committing suicide, Gwen is scared. Still, she remains undeterred in following her visions to uncover the Grabber’s first victims and put them to rest.
For her part, Madeleine McGraw has a commanding presence. She’s determined, resilient, and facing a similar, albeit different, danger; her vulnerability keeps the audience invested in her. McGraw’s role tasks the young actress with creating howling screams, painful moments, and walking the edge of falling into an isolated fear.
This time out, the story is all about Madeleine McGraw’s Gwen, and it’s fantastic.
The sibling duo remains at he heart of Black Phone 2, only in this one, Gwen is the focal point instead of Finn. More importantly, though, they’re not alone. They have Ernesto. While Ernesto and Gwen share a cute budding romance, it’s more important that they have someone who believes in them and understands them. Ernesto is on their side when other people question them. He may not understand what’s happening, but he is there for the siblings.
The young cast, Madeleine McGraw, Mason Thames, Miguel Mora, and Arianna Rivas, each pulls the story forward. Their ability to be vulnerable with each other and stay by each other’s sides is what makes the core of the film unshakable. But among them, it’s McGraw and Thames as the siblings that steal the show with performances that keep you engaged and on the edge of your seat.
Additionally, Demián Bichir’s Armando (Mando for short) is a breath of fresh air. He adds humor and care to the teens’ lives. Mando also provides Finn with the much-needed male influence in his life that his father can’t due to his drinking, as well as the trust that the Grabber stole from him four years ago. Mando is a great character who transcends being just a plot device and a connection to the past.
Black Phone 2 is a wildly different movie from the first. It’s weirder, more ambitious, and leans as hard as it can to 80s horror staples. If you come into this film expecting more like the first film, then you’ll be let down. But if you just strap in and go on the wild ride, you will find some of the most rewarding and creative horror scares, along with a return of classic concepts that work.
Black Phone 2 is an entirely different horror film from the first, but that’s what makes it great.
On paper, Black Phone 2 is too absurd to work, but in execution? Well, to put it plainly, this is the kind of theater horror we have been missing. From the pulse-pounding score to the stellar use of Super 8 to mark distinctions between dreams and realities, and truly unnerving moments like a face sliding down a window, it’s hard to find a film in recent memory that pushed on dreams quite as hard as this, at least not since Nightmare on Elm Street went into its slumber.
In every winding element of the story, Black Phone 2 tries to top itself and doesn’t hold back in swinging for the fences. There isn’t a single moment that isn’t constantly ramping up the stakes, production, or violence. The original film focused on its simplicity with very little shown. This sequel, on the other hand, has aged alongside its young cast and ramped up the blood, anger, and supernatural elements. But even with all of this, Black Phone 2 doesn’t lose its sincerity. And that’s a hard task.
Beautifully shot and perfectly scored, Black Phone 2 is a fast-paced dream slasher that honors the spirit of the original story penned by Joe Hill, while also developing it into something unique. While the characters are the same, the approach to filmmaking feels entirely different, and yet it works. The original film offered simplicity for young characters, and in Black Phone 2, it offers supernatural fear and accelerated stakes to match where the kids are now in their lives. Not every sequel works, but Black Phone 2 does.
Black Phone 2 screened as a part of Fantastic Fest 2025 and will be released in theaters on October 17, 2025.
