Scott Derrickson has made tens of millions on the unnerving vacancy between fragments of movie grain. The horror movies the director has made with screenwriter C. Robert Cargill — “Sinister” and “The Black Telephone” particularly — have used the aesthetics of Tremendous 8 movie to create a suggestive aura of supernatural menace. “The Black Telephone 2” isn’t any exception, with grain so dense in sure sequences that the actors are lowered to ghostly silhouettes. It’s an efficient method, which might be why Derrickson retains utilizing it.
The Tremendous 8 (and modified Tremendous 16) sequences in “The Black Telephone 2” present the movie with its most horrific imagery: fragmented photographs of pink feathers littering the snow round a baby’s deserted parka and thick, viscous blood oozing from a tree stump within the frozen woods. These are all echoes — some prophetic, others from the previous — that recur within the goals skilled by Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), youthful sister of Finney (Mason Thames), the siblings that have been additionally on the heart of the unique “The Black Telephone.”
Finney triumphed on the finish of that movie, dispatching child-snatching serial killer the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) with assist from the ghosts of his earlier victims and considered one of Gwen’s psychic visions. However that doesn’t matter in a horror film, notably a supernatural one. And so the Grabber is again, calling from past the grave to threaten Finney with not solely his personal demise, however that of his little sister as effectively. Hawke returns too, grumbling and growling behind a rubber masks (and, ultimately, some grisly prosthetics). And thank goodness, as a result of there are some thick blocks of dialogue to get by means of right here, and solely an actor of Hawke’s caliber might make them work.
A part of the attraction of the “Black Telephone” motion pictures is that their risk is anachronistic. The variety of pay telephones in the USA has fallen sharply for the reason that cell revolution, making it subsequent to unattainable for a disembodied malevolent spirit to terrorize any misfit children by means of cellphone cubicles as we speak. “The Black Telephone 2” takes place in 1981, a undeniable fact that’s almost unattainable to overlook with the repeated, winking era-specific references and contours a few character being “deader than disco.”
The plot of each movies additionally relies on their teenage characters being comparatively unsupervised, an equally anachronistic contact that “The Black Telephone 2” shares with its most evident inspiration: the “A Nightmare on Elm Road” motion pictures. Particularly, Gwen takes on a number one function on this movie that’s similar to Patricia Arquette’s character in “A Nightmare on Elm Road 3: Dream Warriors,” however with the workers of a snowed-in Christian summer time camp at her again slightly than the sufferers at a youth psychiatric hospital.
These embody Ernesto (Miguel Mora), the youthful brother of a personality from the earlier movie (additionally performed by Mora) and Gwen’s harmless puppy-love suitor; camp supervisor Armando (Demián Bichir), who gives a residing hyperlink to macabre occasions that occurred there a long time earlier; and Mercedes (Arianna Rivas), Armando’s equestrian niece. Makes an attempt so as to add a little bit of Latinx aptitude to the dialogue largely fizzle. However, like Hawke, Bichir does a heroic job carrying the burden of explaining the movie’s lore — a vital operate in a backstory-heavy effort like this one.
Many of the flaws in “The Black Telephone 2” might be traced again to its screenplay, from among the extra cringeworthy dialogue to the unwieldy chunks of exposition and a thematic thread that affirms the existence of Heaven and Hell, and, subsequently, the validity of Christian perception. This isn’t an uncommon message for a horror movie — your entire possession subgenre is constructed on Catholic dogma, as is the “Conjuring” sequence. What makes it worthy of critique right here is the inconsistent method by which it’s utilized, organising a extra considerate tackle the hypocrisy of organized faith solely to desert it when it’s time to ship the Grabber again to Hell.
Derrickson acquits himself extra admirably, including blood-soaked aptitude not solely to the movie’s analog sequences but in addition the digital ones. A scene the place Gwen is terrified by the looks of three boys who have been murdered on the campgrounds again in 1957 is a masterclass in artistic gore results, slicing one boy’s head in half diagonally on a windowpane, watching it slither to the bottom, and leaving it to sputter and twitch as blood swimming pools round what’s left of his face. The movie additionally builds on a well-known impact from “A Nightmare on Elm Road,” spinning our bodies and flinging them round like marionettes whose puppeteer is having a seizure because the characters battle the invisible foe in Gwen’s goals.
Nonetheless, a criticism that’s additionally frequent to up to date horror movies nags at “The Black Telephone 2,” in that all the greatest issues about this film come from different motion pictures, whether or not they be the artistic group’s earlier efforts or iconic titles from a long time previous. (It’s not simply “A Nightmare on Elm Road,” both; the vast majority of the motion takes place because the characters are snowed in at an remoted location, making comparisons to “The Shining” equally inescapable.) These parts are gratifying, which is exactly why they’re recycled right here. And perhaps that’s ok for a horror sequel. However ok won’t ever be extra than simply that.
Grade: B-
“The Black Telephone 2” premiered at Incredible Fest 2025. Common Footage will launch it in theaters on Friday, October 17.
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