Except for Art the Clown, there haven’t been many new breakout horror icons in the last few years… and even he first appeared way back in 2008 before dominating Halloween releases and joining Jason Voorhees in the costume stores. One notable addition, though, was Ethan Hawke’s “Grabber” in 2021’s The Black Phone. The bloody version of the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang met his match in Finney Blake (played by Mason Thames), a teen who is emboldened by the spirits of the Grabber’s previous victims to find the strength to confront and kill the masked fruitcake. His psychic younger sister, Gwen (played by Madelaine McGraw), also had a large part to play in his rescue. The film was a sleeper hit and made a significant profit, not to mention some decent plaudits for the main cast members and director Scott Derrickson (no stranger to the genre himself). As the original was based on a short story by Joe Hill (Stephen’s son, obviously) and the Grabber was definitely “brown bread” at the end, the idea of a follow-up wasn’t immediately on the cards. But as the killer character became more ingrained in genre and social culture (He’s in “Fortnite”. What more proof do you need?), it slowly took shape. With the approval of Hill, this sequel is again directed by Derrickson from a script he co-wrote with C. Robert Cargill and is produced by Jason Blum. It hits the sweet spot by having pretty much all the same cast return, including Hawke and his devil mask. Now in release across the UK and US, and the only big-screen horror release close to Halloween (apart from Shelby Oaks), welcome back to snow-strewn Colorado, where the grim tale of the Grabber is not quite finished.

 

After a brief, clever, and important prologue set in 1957, the story continues from where the last film left off. Sort of. It’s four years later, and the consequences of the Grabber’s reign are still being felt by Finney (Thames) and Gwen (McGraw). The previously withdrawn boy is now 17 and is constantly challenged by attention-seekers, but they quickly feel the smack of his fists in no uncertain terms. Finn uses this conflict (and a lot of pot) to suppress his remaining feelings of fear and guilt. Whereas 15-year-old Gwen appears more stable but is teased as being a “witch” by the school mean girls and is increasingly scared of her random visions. Things take a weird turn when she starts to see the dead boys in her dreams who seem to be communicating with her, along with someone who purports to be her dead mother. These direct Gwen and Finn’s attention to a remote Christian-based camp known as Crystal … err, sorry… Alpine Lake. Reaching the spot during a blizzard, the siblings (along with Gwen’s crush) start to discover that the place has a connection to the formative years of the Grabber (Hawke, again). Not only that, but the creepy villain appears to have clawed his way out of Hell somehow and is (appropriately) hell-bent on revenge. And it’s all going to come from Gwen’s dreams.

 

Whilst this seems to be a sticking point for some people, Black Phone 2 (note the lack of “The”) is not a cookie-cutter studio sequel that feels like a straight and pointless rerun of its predecessor. BP2 feels markedly different to the first film, and this is (for me at least) a good thing. Crossing over to the 80s, Derrickson films the story almost like an experimental arthouse horror from that decade, with very clear references to mainstays from that time. Most notable is the “dream” aspect of proceedings, where the story apes A Nightmare on Elm Street and Dream Warriors in particular, with the Grabber somehow using Gwen’s sleeping phases to affect the outside world and make attempts on her life. Whilst this is an easy target for naysayers to point at the film, in a Leo DiCaprio pointing meme way, and cry “Freddy rip-off”, there are enough angles and invention to make this stand apart from that material. Most pleasing is the use of grainy “Super-8” video footage whenever Gwen falls asleep and experiences a dream. This makes it impossible to pull the old “aha-she-was-asleep-and-you-thought-it-was-real” chestnut at any point; instead, it relies on the ghoulish dead boys and the physical threat of the Grabber to ramp up the scares. It also looks visually cool.

 

This visual ingenuity is indicative of the film as a whole. Derrickson keeps the camera moving, like, all the time. It swoops around people in phone boxes and allows for jump scares as characters appear from nowhere without having to creep up on people. The icy remoteness of the settings allows for the “nothing burns like the cold” aesthetic and for some great set-ups in the plot. One great filmic motif is reused several times when the ghosts of dead victims float to the surface of an ice-covered lake and scratch letters into the underside of the ice layer. It also makes for another great 80s horror homage as the Grabber literally skates over the mist-covered icy lake (with an axe, of course) in a clear callback to 1983’s Curtains, the offbeat slasher beloved by hardcore horror fans that most people have never heard of. That’s what BP2 feels like in many respects. It has a looser, more cult-like quality to it, which feels like an appreciative nod towards genre fans, rather than just a contract-obligated or profits-driven sequel.

 

Whilst it doesn’t feel like a typical sequel in some respects, it does have the advantage of having pretty much all the surviving cast return for shenanigans. You never see Hawke’s face clearly, and he’s visually missing for half the film, but his character is subliminally present for all of it. Even a squashed snowman’s face against the window morphs into the Grabber’s features. And no one can deliver a line like “Vengeance is mine!!” like he can. He makes off-kilter lines like “I am an infinite pit of sin” sound like Shakespeare! And here’s where we get to another big plus point. Thames and McGraw were great as the young characters in the first film, but here they are fantastic as the older teenage versions. McGraw, in particular, gives a diamond performance as the troubled Gwen. Just watch the sequence where she wakes in terror from a dream and repeats, “I feel crazy!” as she flails around realistically. Her earnestness pulls on heartstrings, and her no-filter swearing brings the humour. Honestly, her delivery of lines like “Fuck you with a dinosaur dick!” is just perfect. Not to mention her takedown of a prickly character with a ludicrous c-bomb allegory (which brought the house down in my screening) in a church! The UK 18 certificate is probably just as much for her potty mouth as it is for the blood and gore! No disrespect to Thames, though, as his portrayal of the damaged-but-not-victimised Finn is also top-notch. These two actors will likely go on to do great things, hopefully some of which will remain in this genre.

 

And yes, there is a rougher and more disturbing quality to this sequel, although it supports a dream-like eeriness. The dead are shown dying (in grainy flashbacks), and their wounds are shown in unflinching detail, especially as they are just kids and the murderer continues to “live” through their pain. One aftermath shows a body mulched into viscera, and another moment shows another victim having their face sliced in half. Slanted vertically. Not for the faint-hearted. The groovy thing is that this nastiness is balanced by the goodness of the leads, those that surround them, and the emotional journeys they have. It might sound weird to say this, but it’s the horror version of a “feel-good movie” in many ways. Finn and Gwen’s father (Jeremy Davies as Terrence Blake) was a hard-to-like character previously and is still ineffectual for much of the movie. But he’s shown as a recovering alcoholic who’s trying hard as he chugs bottles of lemonade rather than beer. Finn’s reliance on pot (“We don’t allow the Devil’s Lettuce at this camp”) is not ignored, and a Christian couple are called out for their un-Christian behaviour. It’s nice to see characters in a sequel actually evolve and mature, rather than just go through the same old shit again and learn nothing. Call out for the soundtrack as well, which includes a riff on an iconic Pink Floyd classic as well as brain-stirring synths.

 

There is an unfocused quality to the narrative as a whole, while BP1 was very tightly plotted. This is something which has caused some critics to go down the lesser-sequel appraisal route and trash it somewhat. It also verges on triteness at times, with some of the dialogue and plot twists feeling somewhat contrived. It’s hard to decide whether some lines (such as “You think it’s hot that I pray to Jesus?!”) are genius or cringeworthy. But for the most part, the charisma of the leads, the genuine menace of the Grabber, the unapologetic letting of blood, the apocalyptic swearing of Gwen, the Grand Guignol of the ending, the inherent sweetness of the relationships, and the entertainment of the whole thing, just override all the negative factors. It’s unlikely to reach the heights of Sinners, Weapons, or anywhere near the box office of The Conjuring: Last Rites, but it is a damned good sequel, and we’ve been wrong about the reaction of general audiences before. Answer the call, and you may just be surprised at the result.