The first Black Phone movie was a supernatural thriller that used the supernatural elements in an almost vague or subtle fashion: the phone that allowed the main character to communicate with dead victims of “The Grabber” (a character without an identity outside of being a masked serial killer and torturer), and his sisters psychic dreams. In that movie, the supernatural complemented the story of a kidnapped child who was submitted to psychological torture by his capturer and served to help the characters overcome their ordeal.
In the sequel, however, the supernatural takes front and center in form of a psychic connection between Gwen (the first movies’ protagonist sister) and her mother and other victims of “The Grabber”: her dreams are shot in a different way, in order to invoke a different atmosphere and distinguish them from “real world events”.
It is a different type of movie, in the way that is more focused on supernatural horror than the psychological torture and tension that defined its’ predecessor. It also shifts the focus of the previous protagonist Finney to his sister Gwen, who becomes the central character in this movie, although the relationship between brother and sister is an important part of the dynamic as well their improved relationship with their father.
It is a movie that scared me, but also made me laugh at times due to the interactions between the characters, mainly the teenagers (the siblings and their friend who is the brother of one of the victims in the first movie). All in all, the actors perform amazingly their parts, with Ethan Hawke (The Grabber) being a standout, but also Mason Thames (Finney) and Madeleine McGraw (Gwen). Plus I liked the fact that the killer himself always remains identified as an entity of evil rather than a man with a clear name and past, as evil does not always have a face or a name.
