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Debuting as the revived Stephen King machine was continuing to produce film versions, without concern for excellence, The Black Phone felt like a sloppy admiration piece. With its retro suburban environment, young performers, telepathic children and gnarly neighbourhood villain, it was close to pastiche and, comparable to the weakest King’s stories, it was also awkwardly crowded.

Interestingly the source was found from the author's own lineage, as it was based on a short story from King’s son Joe Hill, expanded into a film that was a shocking commercial success. It was the narrative about the kidnapper, a brutal murderer of children who would enjoy extending the process of killing. While assault was not referenced, there was something unmistakably LGBTQ-suggestive about the character and the historical touchpoints/moral panics he was obviously meant to represent, strengthened by the actor playing him with a certain swishy, effeminate flare. But the film was too opaque to ever fully embrace this aspect and even without that uneasiness, it was excessively convoluted and too focused on its wearisome vileness to work as only an undiscerning sleepover nightmare fuel.

Follow-up Film's Debut Amidst Filmmaking Difficulties

The follow-up debuts as previous scary movie successes the studio are in critical demand for a hit. Recently they've faced challenges to make anything work, from Wolf Man to The Woman in the Yard to their action film to the complete commercial failure of the AI sequel, and so a great deal rides on whether Black Phone 2 can prove whether a short story can become a film that can create a series. But there's a complication …

Paranormal Shift

The initial movie finished with our protagonist Finn (the performer) killing the Grabber, assisted and trained by the apparitions of earlier casualties. It’s forced director Scott Derrickson and his writing partner Cargill to move the franchise and its antagonist toward fresh territory, transforming a human antagonist into a ghostly presence, a direction that guides them via Elm Street with a power to travel into reality facilitated by dreams. But unlike Freddy Krueger, the Grabber is clearly unimaginative and totally without wit. The mask remains effectively jarring but the movie has difficulty to make him as terrifying as he temporarily seemed in the original, limited by convoluted and often confusing rules.

Mountain Retreat Location

The main character and his frustratingly crude sister Gwen (the performer) confront him anew while snowed in at a mountain religious retreat for kids, the sequel also nodding in the direction of Jason Voorhees the Friday the 13th antagonist. Gwen is guided there by a vision of her late mother and what might be their dead antagonist's original prey while Finn, still trying to handle his fury and fresh capacity for resistance, is following so he can protect her. The writing is excessively awkward in its artificial setup, inelegantly demanding to get the siblings stranded at a location that will additionally provide to backstories for both hero and villain, supplying particulars we didn't actually require or want to know about. Additionally seeming like a more strategic decision to push the movie towards the same church-attending crowds that turned the Conjuring franchise into huge successes, Derrickson adds a spiritual aspect, with morality now more strongly connected with the creator and the afterlife while villainy signifies the devil and hell, belief the supreme tool against this type of antagonist.

Over-stacked Narrative

The consequence of these choices is additional over-complicate a franchise that was previously close to toppling over, adding unnecessary complications to what should be a straightforward horror movie. Regularly I noticed excessively engaged in questioning about the processes and motivations of feasible and unfeasible occurrences to feel all that involved. It's an undemanding role for Hawke, whose features stay concealed but he maintains real screen magnetism that’s typically lacking in other aspects in the acting team. The location is at times impressively atmospheric but the majority of the consistently un-scary set-pieces are damaged by a rough cinematic quality to distinguish dreaming from waking, an ineffective stylistic choice that seems excessively meta and designed to reflect the frightening randomness of being in an actual nightmare.

Weak Continuation Rationale

Lasting approximately two hours, the sequel, similar to its predecessor, is a unnecessarily lengthy and highly implausible argument for the birth of a new franchise. The next time it rings, I suggest ignoring it.

• The sequel releases in Australian theaters on the sixteenth of October and in the US and UK on October 17