Just four years after the events of The Black Phone, siblings Gwen and Finny find the past has come back to haunt them; Gwen sleepwalks through the night while also drifting through a paranormal plane receiving messages from lost souls as the evil spirit of The Grabber returns to make the siblings’ life a living hell. Thankfully, the two siblings, played excellently by Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw, find themselves in an unraveling paranormal mystery that they won't back down from without a fight. 

 

Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill expands the mythos of the first film adapted from the Joe Hill story of the same name. This time, we focus on Gwen as she's receiving messages from the other side; the ghosts of three children murdered by the grabber in the 1950s reach out to Gwen in an attempt to get their souls at peace, while the spirit of The Grabber haunts both siblings from beyond the grave. Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw return as the siblings Gwen and Finny, and in this sequel they have deeper and more challenging material to work with than the first installment. Finny has fallen into a depression after killing The Grabber during his escape at the end of the first film, and Gwen is drifting in and out of dream space that allows her to talk to the dead; while her clairvoyant abilities are growing, she's terrified by them, but feels compelled to solve the mystery behind these children begging her to put their souls to rest. 

 

As I find Black Phone 2 a step up from Derrickson's first installment, this entry still carries its own kind of issues. For one, it's massively repetitive after its very effective first act; when the ball gets rolling, the film feels compelled to throw you many dream sequences and while their presentation is really striking, each dream sequence introduced (despite two very notable exceptions) really make the film feel like it's going around in circles not offering much interest. Also this film introduces other characters that aren't very interesting at all; some would say these characters are set up to be killed off, but it becomes quickly apparent that Derrickson isn't interested in doing really anything remarkable with these characters which begs the question why they are even there at all. 

Despite its repetitive nature, Black Phone 2 manages to be a sweet and cold installment that is a step up from the first film. This film is brought into much more interesting places, with a central set that's really well used, and adds a central identity to the film that makes it feel fresh and unique while also expanding well on the first film.