Black Phone 2

Echoes in the Ice

Sequels are rarely acts of art; they are usually acts of commerce. In the horror genre, this rule is often enforced with cynical brutality, turning unique nightmares into assembly-line franchises. Yet Scott Derrickson’s *Black Phone 2* defies this industrial logic. It is not merely a continuation of the 2021 hit; it is a deepening of its wounds. Where the first film was a claustrophobic chamber piece about captivity, this 2025 follow-up is an expansive, frozen elegy on the nature of lingering trauma. Derrickson, reuniting with co-writer C. Robert Cargill, has crafted a film that feels less like a "part two" and more like the second movement of a sombre symphony.



The visual language of *Black Phone 2* is its most immediate and striking departure. We have left the suffocating basement for the vast, blinding white of the Rocky Mountains. The shift from the autumnal suburbs of the 1970s to a snowed-in Christian camp in 1982 allows Derrickson to trade shadow for blinding light, creating a sense of isolation that is paradoxically more open yet more inescapable. The cinematography captures the Colorado winter not as a wonderland, but as a preservation mechanism—ice freezes things in place, just as trauma freezes the internal lives of survivors. The blizzard that traps Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) at Alpine Lake acts as a physical manifestation of the static that has plagued their lives since escaping the Grabber.

Thames and McGraw, returning to roles that could have easily become caricatures of "movie survivors," instead offer performances of profound fragility. Finney is no longer just the victim; he is a young man hollowed out by violence, navigating a world that expects him to be whole. But it is McGraw’s Gwen who serves as the film's spiritual anchor. Her psychic burden—the "shining" that connects her to the other side—is treated not as a superpower, but as a heavy, terrifying inheritance. The film wisely pivots to make her internal landscape the primary battlefield. When the Black Phone rings now, it rings in her dreams, blurring the line between the subconscious and the supernatural in a way that recalls the best of *A Nightmare on Elm Street*, minus the camp.



Ethan Hawke’s return as The Grabber was the production's biggest risk. How do you bring back a mortal villain who was decisively killed? Derrickson’s answer is to transform him into a metaphysical rot. The Grabber is no longer a man in a mask; he is a haunting, a sentient infection in the minds of the children he couldn't keep. The decision to reveal his scarred, spectral form beneath the ice of the frozen lake transforms him from a kidnapper into a mythical boogeyman, a figure that represents the past refusing to stay buried. The introduction of Demián Bichir as Armando, the camp supervisor, adds a necessary layer of adult regret and history, grounding the supernatural theatrics in a very human sorrow.



Ultimately, *Black Phone 2* succeeds because it refuses to let its characters "win" in the traditional sense. Defeating the monster doesn't erase the memory of the basement. The film suggests that survival is a chronic condition, one that requires constant vigilance and the support of those who share your scars. By moving the horror from a physical cage to the infinite, terrifying expanse of a dreamscape, Derrickson has elevated a simple slasher concept into a complex meditation on grief and memory. It is a chilly, often terrifying film, but one that beats with a fiercely protective heart.