Fantastic Fest 2025 Review: BLACK PHONE 2 is a Riveting and Worthy Sequel

Black Phone 2 has been one of my most highly anticipated films of this year’s Fantastic Fest. The first film was one of my favorites of 2021, and I have been awaiting the release of the follow-up with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. As much as I loved Black Phone, it seemed that the entire story had been told. What else could be left for these characters? Would a sequel bring anything new and interesting, or just retread the same territory?

I’m excited to say that Black Phone 2 lives up to the high quality set by its predecessor. It delivers in every possible area— story, character, boogeyman, and above all, scares. Where the first film was a pretty confined piece that focused on a real-world monster (with a touch of the supernatural), this film gets to expand, luxuriating in a space of supernatural villainy and a story that builds on what was initially laid down, without upending or undoing anything that came before.

Directed by Scott Derrickson and co-written by C.Robert Cargill (both returning) the film opens on Finn (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), now in high school, still living in the shadow of their experiences with The Grabber. Finn is still getting into fights (now more as the aggressor), and regularly smokes pot in an effort to try to alleviate the lingering emotions that he doesn’t have the ability to deal with. Gwen is once again having disturbing, clairvoyant dreams. She dreams of her mother and of three young boys who disappeared from a Christian youth camp up in the mountains in the 1950s. At the same time, we learn that Finn is still receiving phone calls from the dead. Determined to leave that experience in the past, he does his best to ignore them… until he picks up the phone one day to hear The Grabber’s voice. Gwen convinces Finn and their friend Ernesto (played by Black Phone alum Miguel Mora) to travel to the camp over winter break to try to learn more about how the camp, their mother, and the Grabber might all be connected.

Once again, the cast is amazing. Which shouldn’t be terribly surprising, given how well the young actors carried the first film. The script doesn’t shy away from complex material. And both McGraw and Thames were very comfortable with taking it and delivering powerful performances. These characters have grown and are in a different place, but they still have the emotional scars from everything that they endured four years ago. Especially Finn. He is trying desperately to cope with the lingering fear and anger that he has, and is barely hanging on. 

Ethan Hawke is back as The Grabber and the character is just as scary. But different. He is every bit the malicious sadist that he always has been, but with something more. He reminded me of the transition that Freddy Krueger underwent for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Still the same character, but molded a little differently. Since the Grabber is dead, he now inhabits a different world, with a different set of rules. Which means that now he is somehow even darker. 

Speaking of Freddy, there is a lot here that aligns with the Nightmare on Elm Street series. We played with the dream space with Gwen in the first film, but now that The Grabber is no longer living, he has the power to go into her dreams and affect them. He terrorizes her nightmares, since that is the only way he can really touch her. This film wears its influences on its sleeves, but takes pieces of all of them to create a tapestry that is new and very much its own wonderful thing.

The thing I think a lot of sequels struggle with is necessity. Beyond simply making another movie. Is there more story to tell? Some films work perfectly as 90-minute installments, like the Final Destination films. We get in and out and have some fun along the way. But movies that are rooted in specific ideas and complex mythologies can have more difficulty returning to that well. What will this new film bring to the table that will enhance the world of the first? Sure, we’ll watch it and we might have fun, but do we need it?  Here, Cargill and Derrickson made it necessary. This film lives in the same space as its predecessor and builds its story from what already existed, without undoing any of it or making any of the details feel forced or superfluous. 

Fans of the first Black Phone will be getting a scary surprise this October. Black Phone 2 can easily be placed on the same pedestal as the first film. There are just as many frights, just as much rich world-building, and just as much time spent with characters that we care about and want to see survive. As nightmarish as The Grabber is, it’s a nightmare worth visiting.

Movie Score: 5/5