It swept the end of year movie awards here at borg in 2022: Best Film, Best Retro Fix, Best Horror Film, Best Suspense/Thriller, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Musical Score, Best Costumes, and Best Art/Production Design. Blumhouse’s The Black Phone was the ultimate genre mash-up–a supernatural coming of age mystery and crime thriller set in the 1970s. Every now and then a movie truly keeps you riveted to your seat. But it doesn’t look like director Scott Derrickson is taking the same route for his sequel, Black Phone 2. The original followed a brother and sister in a small Denver suburb in 1978 as the town is shocked by a criminal dubbed the Grabber, who is kidnapping and killing young boys–a few years before pictures of missing kids would be the subject of milk cartons across the nation. Based on a Joe Hill short story, the subject matter is not something audiences are expected to be comfortable with, and yet the handling of it, as well as the incorporation of supernatural elements, was perfect. But the second trailer looks to be leaving the past behind and turning into some kind of Freddy Krueger-inspired slasher flick.
Mason Thames is back as Finney Blake, who at 17 seems to have PTSD from his kidnapping trauma. Madeleine McGraw returns as his sister Gwen, who begins to have nightmares where she sees more disturbing events. And it looks like Ethan Hawke’s villain, who Finney killed in the first film, is now haunting his dreams like Freddy Krueger. The trailers make the sequel look to lean more toward Friday the 13th than Zodiac.
Check out the bloodier, creepier second trailer for Black Phone 2:
Here is the slightly less gory first trailer, in case you missed it:
Black Phone 2 comes to theaters in time for Halloween, slated for release October 17, 2025.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
