Movie Review: BLACK PHONE 2

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: October 17th, 2025 / 08:17 AM

BLACK PHONE 2 movie poster | ©2025 Universal

Rating: R
Stars: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Davies, Demián Bichir, Miguel Mora, Arianna Rivas, Maev Beaty, Graham Abbey
Writers: Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill, based on the short story by Joe Hill
Director: Scott Derrickson
Distributor: Universal
Release Date: October 17, 2025

BLACK PHONE 2, the sequel to 2021’s THE BLACK PHONE, could informally be called A NIGHTMARE ON BLACK PHONE STREET.

We spend most of BLACK PHONE 2 at Camp Alpine Lake rather than in suburbia (where the first film took place), but there’s still the scenario of a murderer of kids, now dead himself, stalking a new victim in their dreams, resulting in real-world peril.

Director Scott Derrickson & co-screenwriter C. Robert Cargill, both returning from the original BLACK PHONE, based on Joe Hill’s short story, killed Ethan Hawke’s Grabber off last time around. If they wanted him back for the sequel – and they do – they had to bring him back somehow.

Since it was established in the first film that Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) has dreams that show past, present and possible future, this narrative choice makes reasonable sense. The setting of a kids’ camp with only staff around and a supernatural villain who wears a mask add some FRIDAY THE 13^TH vibes, but as the Grabber talks (unlike, say, Jason Voorhees), we’re more in NIGHTMARE territory.

Per the title, there needs to be a black phone. This time, there are several, mostly in pay booths. As BLACK PHONE 2 takes place mainly in 1982 – its predecessor was in 1978 – these are still standard in the landscape of most inhabited areas.

A prologue introduces us to the Christian youth camp at Alpine Lake, where a teen counselor hears ringing from the camp’s phone booth. Bewildered, she answers.

We jump forward to 1982. Finn (Mason Thames) survived being kidnapped and imprisoned by the Grabber four years ago with the help of ghosts of the Grabber’s previous young victims, who called Finn on a supposedly inoperable phone in his cell. Finn’s psychic little sister Gwen also provided aid.

Finn is now seventeen and in high school, where he beats up any new kids who dare to ask him about his slaying of the Grabber. Gwen, a grade or two behind him, wishes her big brother would chill. But Gwen has problems of her own, with nightmares – shot in grainy contrast to the sharp focus of the waking world – that cause her to sleepwalk. Formerly abusive dad Terrence (Jeremy Davies) is trying to maintain sobriety but still doesn’t know how to connect with his offspring.

Trying to find a cure for her distress, Gwen discovers that her and Finn’s late mother worked at the Alpine Lake Christian youth camp as a counselor back in the ‘50s. Gwen manages to persuade a reluctant Finn and her enthusiastic would-be boyfriend Ernesto (Miguel Mora) to apply there as counselors in training for the reopened camp’s winter session.

Just as the trio arrives, a raging snowstorm blocks off entry from the outside world. Finn, Gwen and Ernesto are stranded at the mostly empty camp with new owner/former counselor Mando (Demián Bichir), youthful current counselor Mustang (Arianna Rivas), uptight Barbara (Maev Beaty) and her conflict-avoiding spouse Ken (Graham Abbey).

There’s also an isolated, out-of-service pay phone standing in the middle of the ice-covered parking lot. Finn and Gwen hear it ring at different times.

As director, Derrickson makes good use of the frozen lake, the shrouded daylight, and all those bunk beds with creepy dark spaces beneath them. He and co-writer Cargill craft likable characters and agreeable banter.

The cast is good, and there’s clever use of Mora as the younger brother of the character he played in THE BLACK PHONE.

But something that may work against BLACK PHONE 2’s horror intentions is its YA tone. Despite those gory children’s ghosts, there’s so much emphasis on Gwen’s journey that the adventure tends to crowd out the scares.

We also don’t fully comprehend what the spectral Grabber can and can’t do. Maybe this revelation is being saved for a third installment to make a BLACK PHONE trilogy, but here it’s less suspenseful than baffling.

BLACK PHONE 2 is decent Halloween-time fun, but even with its R rating (mostly for language), it skews as more introduction to the genre than as an item for hardcore fans.

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