Review: Black Phone 2

Director:  Scott Derrickson

Stars:  Demián Bichir, Madeleine McGraw, Mason Thames

While his brief stint aboard the MCU gravy train might have suggested otherwise, Scott Derrickson is a fan of the analogue. From the super 8 reels that formed the centrepiece of his horror hit Sinister to the proud assertion on the end credits of this film that it cannot be used to train AI (cheer!), Derrickson holds precious the tactile methods of expression that some would have us think antiquated. It’s no wonder he was drawn to Joe Hill’s short story The Black Phone in the first place. Even something as innocuous as a landline telephone cradles significant meaning. A portal into what’s past (and passed).

The Black Phone wasn’t screaming out for a sequel, particularly as it left Ethan Hawke’s child-capturing serial killer The Grabber dead and gone. But let’s not forget that Saw bumped off John Kramer in film three, and Tobin Bell’s still the face of that franchise some 20 years later. Also that the titular telephone was a literal conduit through which kidnapped kid Finn (Mason Thames) could commune with the dead. Derrickson and regular co-scribe C. Robert Cargill evidently thought there was (after)life in the material yet…

Four years on and his focal teens are entering young adulthood. Finn and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) still live in the same Colorado town with their father (Jeremy Davies), but at least he’s cleaned up his act and quit drinking. Focus tilts slightly more in Gwen’s favour, as nightmarish dreams and sleepwalking jags put her on the trail of a defunct mountain summer camp – Alpine Lake – in pursuit of three murdered boys trying to communicate a message from the beyond. Finn’s still hearing the ringing of telephones, but he’d rather deny his own psychic power for the fug of reefer smoke. Protective of his sister, he still joins her and high school romeo Ernesto (Miguel Mora) when they leave to play Scooby Doo.

Ethan Hawke’s Grabber is relegated to Gwen’s dreamscapes, which Derrickson renders in a handsome grainy murk redolent of his prior super 8 fixation. With suppressed sound and dim visuals, these methods are really quite effective and, later, also useful to differentiate what’s what as we’re forced to chop and change between dreams and reality. The lore and mechanics at work in Black Phone 2 are quite labored, and it takes a good half of the film to get everyone where Derrickson needs them in order to explain his game plan. Once it’s intentions are announced, Black Phone 2 can’t help but draw uncanny parallels to the A Nightmare on Elm Street series and particularly fan favourite instalment Dream Warriors. I guess with Freddy Krueger currently on ice, creating their own variant was the easiest avenue for Cargill and Derrickson to play in his sandbox. 

Krueger isn’t the only thing on ice. AI may be absent but green screen and CG are very much in play, and some set-ups can’t help but announce a certain level of unreal staginess. These are in the minority, however, and much of the time the frosty setting evokes a palpably harsh bitterness. This is offset, welcomingly, by the warm work of Demián Bichir has Alpine Lake’s owner Mando. Bichir is becoming character actor royalty, particularly across horror franchises, and the joviality of his performance is a welcome balm against the grim themes of child murder that surround him. Thames (who’s starting to look uncannily like a young Chris Mulkey) is a terse, standoffish presence, so it’s also helpful that McGraw is given her opportunity this time out to impress. 

But the film itself is a strange and stilted creature, one that feels as though it needs at least one more pass in the editing room. It never quite nails any momentum, even once the definitions of the story come into focus. This is particularly true in the third act when everything stops for a family reunion that, out of necessity, requires a recap of everything we’ve already learned. It pauses the film dead in it’s tracks.

As with prior outings from Derrickson, there’s also a keenness to view everything through devout Christian dogma. It’s as heavy-handed as the recent The Conjuring: Last Rites and like that film it chooses, awkwardly, to reward the faithful with sappy miracles that divorce it from the real world entirely. An eleventh hour phone call for Gwen is a sentimental step too far and, like the miracle birth scene for the Warrens, teeters on the borders of taste. 

Not to be shouted down as a ‘Barb’ (you’ll see), but Black Phone 2 also leans further into Gwen’s potty mouth as a character trait. It might be hilarious for 15 year olds in the audience, but as this movie’s been slapped with an 18 certificate, it mostly rings out as pandering to lowest common denominators, particularly as McGraw’s characterisation of Gwen has conspicuously outgrown it in all other respects. It’s a small point, but another pertinent example of how Derrickson flounders at nailing a persistent tone. 

All of which means, like the first movie, that Black Phone 2 is pitted with good ideas, maybe even a couple of great ones, but their assemblage is lacking. It’s overlong and a little incoherent. The ideas in Derrickson’s movies are often interesting enough to see us through, but the execution somehow eludes greatness. Like the Grabber’s mask, it’s split, undecided, and often a fair bit sillier than it is scary. Still, I’m sure the lure of turning this into a trilogy will be irresistible to all parties.