Scott Derrickson’s “The Black Phone 2” doesn’t do much wrong, but it doesn’t take many risks either.
It’s the kind of sequel that feels like it was built in a Blumhouse laboratory, every scene wired to familiar beats and formulas the studio has recycled for more than a decade. The result is a movie that’s slick, sometimes chilling, but rarely surprising.
Four years after the events of the first film, Finney (Mason Thames) and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) are still trying to rebuild a sense of normalcy after surviving the Grabber, a kidnapper and serial killer. The siblings now find themselves haunted in new ways, pulled into another supernatural ordeal involving the mysterious black phone that once saved Finney’s life.
The snow-covered camp setting acts as a cold hell with great atmosphere, but it’s clear from early on that Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill are operating inside the same Blumhouse box that produced “Sinister,” “Insidious” and “The Conjuring.”
The series originally began as a short story by Joe Hill, Stephen King’s son, whose brief but eerie narrative appeared in his 2005 collection 20th Century Ghosts. That story was lean, focused more on isolation, memory and the faint hope of connection between the living and the dead.
Derrickson’s 2021 adaptation stretched it into a feature with surprising emotional weight. “The Black Phone 2” goes even further, building its own mythology, trading Hill’s intimate horror for something more sprawling and cinematic. It’s bigger in scope but smaller in spirit, less about dread and more about putting a nail in the Grabber’s coffin.
That’s not entirely a bad thing. Blumhouse knows how to make horror movies look and feel expensive without actually being expensive. The lighting, sound design and tension all work in their usual, calculated way.
But “The Black Phone 2 “feels like a mash-up of every other Blumhouse project: A greatest-hits reel of tropes we’ve already seen.
There’s the slow-burn first act, the dream sequences just like in “Insidious” and the telegraphed jump scares that land right on cue. You can practically sense the studio’s touch on every frame.
I actually found myself noticing the references more than the story. The needle-drop of “Subways of Your Mind” by FEX was a shock, and Demian Bichir’s introduction was certainly a nod to his role in “The Hateful Eight.” Those touches are niche, but they pile up until the movie starts to feel more like a scrapbook of Blumhouse culture than a fresh idea. It makes the whole film feel meta.
What gives “The Black Phone 2” its pulse is the relationship between Finney and Gwen. Thames and McGraw are fantastic together, and the script gives them space to show how trauma has reshaped their bond.
They’re older, tougher and guarded, but you can feel the love beneath the silence. Their performances are the film’s emotional anchor, keeping things grounded when the scares fall flat.
The stunts deserve major credit, too. Every chase and kill feels brutal and real, with an old-school physicality that you don’t see often in modern horror.
There are also some very unique stunts I’ve never seen before. When the movie leans into that tangible danger, it shines. It’s a shame the pacing can’t sustain the momentum, because right after something unique like that happens, we are often taken right back to meandering around until either Gwen falls asleep or the phone rings.
Where the film really falters is in its side characters. Most exist to deliver exposition and are never really expanded on.
One early scene, where Ernesto gives Gwen a deck of Spanish tarot cards and she responds fluently, speaking perfect Spanish, establishes that Ernesto is, indeed, Spanish.
It feels especially forced — the cards never show up again, and Gwen never speaks Spanish again. It’s a small detail, but it reflects how secondary everyone feels outside the main family.
The biblical imagery is intriguing, and the kills are inventive, but “The Black Phone 2” ultimately leans too hard on the same safe formula. It’s polished, emotional in moments, but not bold.
For fans of the first film, it’s a worthy continuation. For everyone else, it’s another decent horror entry from a studio still haunted by its own habits, worth a few scares and some awe in the stunts. But the sequel ends up feeling phoned in.
