“The Black Phone 2” is a movie sequel to the first “Black Phone” made in 2022. It’s set in 1982, four years after the events in the first movie. The grabber wants revenge on Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) for getting him caught and killed. When they are at the Alpine youth camp, he comes back more powerful and relentless when they least expect.
In the first movie, a kidnapper known as “the grabber” kidnapped and killed 5 kids before kidnapping his last victim, Finney. Finney’s little sister, Gwen, plays a big part in the movie because she has dreams and visions correlating to the kidnappings. Gwen and Finney had gone different ways after school. On the way home, Finney ran into a man who had dropped something and asked for his help. As he went to help he had seen black balloons in the back of his van, the same balloons seen at every kidnapping scene. As he asked about the balloons, the grabber had taken him too. He woke up in a basement with nothing but a mattress and a broken wall phone, or so he thought. The grabber explained he wasn’t going to hurt him and he’d take him home after a while. After he had gone upstairs, the phone rang. After a few times of Finney picking up the phone and there was nothing, the ghosts of the boys previously kidnapped had talked to him one by one. Every time the phone rang, it was a different ghost telling him what and what not to do. They told him about all the secret hidden spaces they found and how to escape. After every escape trial failed, he began to give up. The phone rang one last time; it was Finney’s best friend Robin. The grabber was coming to kill him the next time he came downstairs and Robin told him exactly what to do. “Take the phone off the wall, fill it with dirt, and when the grabber comes, step forward, take a fast step back, step forward, step back and swing!” They practiced this over and over until he got the hang of it. During the time he was kidnapped, his sister had dreams that helped the police find them. Finney had taken Robin’s advice, set a lot of extra traps and successfully killed the grabber. Gwen was there with the police when he killed them, and they thought he ended it all…but did he?
“The Black Phone 2” starts off with a girl in a phone booth in the middle of the mountains named, Hope. You cannot hear who she’s talking to on the other end, just what she’s saying. After a little bit into the movie, Gwen “wakes up” from one of her dreams to hear the phone ringing, but skips the phone and walks to the door and opens it. Finney then comes to her and wakes her up. Some time goes by, and she continues having these nightmares and sleepwalking. Until one night she sleepwalked to the grabbers old house, where she then talks to Hope on the phone. The conversation that was heard at the beginning of the movie is now heard again, but you can hear both ends now. During their conversation, they found out they both have dreams but don’t know each other. Gwen brings up at breakfast, a camp that needs CIT’s, The Alpine Youth Camp. Finney said he wouldn’t go and their dad was hesitant about her going because their mom went there when she was a kid. Gwen was just going to go with her friend Ernesto, who is Finney’s best friend, Robin’s little brother. At the last minute Finney decided to go with them. They get there in a snow storm, so no kids are there yet. Later in the night, Finney goes outside and hears the phone in the phone booth ringing, but when he picks it up no one says anything. It stays quiet for a while until the grabber answers and says, “Hell isn’t flames Finney; it’s ice.” Finney gets locked in the phone booth with the grabber on the phone, but then hears Gwen screaming. She had another one of her nightmares about the ghosts of the kids who got killed there. Finney finally gets out of the phone booth and wakes her up. The next morning, the phone rings again while they are at breakfast. 3 kids are on the phone with Finney telling him to help and find them so the grabber will no longer hold any power. The next time the phone rang, the grabber was on the other end talking to Finney. In their conversation, the grabber explains to Finney that he wants revenge for Finney killing him and making him kill his brother. While they are on the phone talking, Ernesto is trying to find Gwen; he gets help from the other counselors, and they find her in the kitchen. In her dream the grabber was about to kill her, but it looked like she was possessed by the others. When she finally wakes up, they all have a meeting where Gwen then explains her dreams and how they aren’t dreams and it’s real. The owner has been trying to find the dead children for years to send peace to their families, and so they could finally rest peacefully. He wanted to keep Gwen and Finney there to help him find them. He shows Finney a picture of the camp when their mom was still there, and Finney points out one of them was the grabber. He was known as “Wild Bill Hickok.” Later that night “Wild Bill Hickok” calls the owner and is very upset with him. After Gwen saw where the kids were they started searching, but it was night so everyone but the owner stopped. Gwen fell asleep and was being monitored so she didn’t get hurt sleepwalking but she found a way to leave anyway in her dream. She follows a girl who is later known to be her mother go to the grabbers house and then is put into the grabbers van. The grabber waves Gwen over in her dream and tells her he’s going to show her what really happened to her mom. After showing her what happened, he said he’s going to kill her. She escapes and wakes up, but the grabber has still hurt her. The next day Finney and Gwen had been the only two to see the grabber and ended up killing him again. As they were leaving, the phone rang one last time, but only Gwen could hear it meaning it was for her; it was her mom calling to talk to her from heaven.
The plot of the movie was excellent. It gave suspense and surprise. The time and the place of the events worked really well together. It was also spooky but not super scary. There was maybe one jumpscare throughout the whole movie. It also wasn’t to the point where it was boring; it was very eventful, but the movie itself was slowed down so it wouldn’t be just one thing after another.
One critique about the movie were some of the lines and one of the actors. The directors really messed Gwen up; they “cut” her hair but it was very obviously a wig. It just didn’t suit her. They also gave Gwen and Ernesto very cringey lines. This type of genre is usually for teenagers and those parts wouldn’t be enjoyable but weird. It was only a few short lines, so it didn’t ruin the movie. It was still awkward.
The movie overall gets 5 stars. There are no complaints. A few enjoyable factors from it are the movie’s development. Instead of it being the same as the first movie and making it more like a “sequel,” it gives more of a backstory to everything, and it focuses on different ideas and characters. Another enjoyable part was the suspense. It made sure the audience didn’t expect what was going to happen next, but it also didn’t leave them guessing.
