First of all, I want to reassure those of you who are most worried. No phone booths were damaged during the filming of Black Phone 2, Scott Derrickson’s supernatural horror film. The Grabber didn’t cancel any concerts. Snowploughs didn’t go out on the roads. Children didn’t go fishing in the freezing cold. Youth camps weren’t bombed. And no communities in the Bible Belt were looked at askance by the camera.
The opening credits are well done, reminding me of American Horror Story, with more effective music. The phone ringing in the booth is the most annoying part of the film, and it can’t be changed… The heroine sometimes displays a disappointing prosaicness, which contrasts with her sense of duty and sacrifice.
The visual atmosphere straddles the line between dream and reality. During the dream sequences, the superimposed grain of the film seems to echo the omnipresent snow. The cold and ice symbolize the Tartarus of Hell, as evoked by the Greeks. Telephone harassment is a torment of modern Hell…
Throughout its story, Black Phone 2 pays homage to A Nightmare on Elm Street, the founder of scary dream slasher movies. And I have solid evidence to back this up: the wounds inflicted by the Grabber in the dream world appear in reality, under the frightened gaze of her friends; her loved ones try to wake her up so she can escape the killer’s clutches; the Grabber can attack both sleepers and those who are awake; he knew his victims thanks to his former profession… The horror is rooted in the past.
The spatialization of anxiety is well staged. The themes of somnambulism and absence-presence add depth to the film. Black Phone 2 does not burden itself with laborious explanations and repetitive scenes, as other horror films tend to do. The fluidity of the action, the acrobatics, the face-offs between the killer and his prey, and the theatrical arrangement of the characters make the action unique and entertaining, creating an omnipresent atmosphere of horror. Past wounds are reopened by a devious, methodical, and narcissistic Grabber, who is confronted by the heroine’s determined strategy.
Released on October 17, 2025.
Running time: 114 minutes
Adapted from 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (PS Publishing, 2005).
Photo credits © 2025 Blumhouse Productions – Crooked Highway
