Black Phone 2

The first time I watched The Black Phone was in the summer of 2022, at a small cinema in Beijing's Chaoyang District that was about to go out of business. Only seven people were in that theater. I remember clearly because I counted.

At that time, I had just started writing a horror film review blog, about half a year in, updating once a week, with fewer than two hundred readers. I thought The Black Phone would be a film quickly forgotten. Instead, the movie grossed $160 million worldwide on a budget of just $18 million. My judgment of the market has always been poor. This wasn't the first time.

I've been following director Scott Derrickson since 2012. That year he made Sinister, which I gave four stars on Douban and wrote over a thousand words about—looking back now, that review was terrible. He later went on to direct Doctor Strange, and I was quite disappointed at the time, feeling like Marvel had swallowed him up. The Black Phone was his return to horror.

News of the sequel came out in late 2023. Released by Blumhouse. Jason Blum is an interesting figure—his company specializes in low-budget horror films. Insidious, The Purge, Get Out are all from them. He has a very mature business model: keep costs under twenty million, and box office returns are almost guaranteed. A sequel was inevitable for them.

My attitude toward horror sequels is complicated.

I've been in this circle for over a decade, seen too many sequels destroy what the originals built. Ring 2, Ju-On 2, the Saw series became unwatchable from the fourth installment onward. The studios' thinking is simple: the first one succeeded, we have the characters, we have the world, let's make another one to harvest the audience. Most of the time this strategy works—they do recoup at the box office—but reputation suffers. Audiences aren't stupid. They curse after watching the sequel, and by the third film, they're not going to the theater anymore.

The Black Phone's situation is a bit different. The first film's story was actually complete. Finney escaped, the Grabber died, those ghosts helped him achieve revenge. It's a closed narrative. How do you make a sequel?

In March 2024, Derrickson revealed some information on a podcast. The sequel won't directly continue the first film's storyline; there will be new characters and new situations. Ethan Hawke will return as the Grabber, but not in living form. After this news came out, horror forums debated for a long time. Some thought it was a cash grab, others thought this direction might be interesting.

I'm in the wait-and-see camp.

Ethan Hawke's portrayal of the Grabber was the biggest highlight of the first film—the mask design, his physical performance when not showing his face, all very oppressive. Bringing this character back makes sense commercially. My concern is how to handle it narratively. If not handled well, the Grabber will become like Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger—a symbolic villain who shows up in every installment to kill a few people, losing the sense of reality from the first film.

The first film was adapted from a short story by Joe Hill. Joe Hill is Stephen King's son, but he rarely uses this identity for promotion—I respect him for that. The original short story is very brief; the film expanded a lot, adding the sister Gwen's storyline, adding the ghosts' backstories. The sequel reportedly isn't adapted from other Joe Hill works; it's an original screenplay. C. Robert Cargill and Derrickson are still the writing team—they've been collaborating since Sinister.

A long-time reader of my blog emailed me last year, asking about my expectations for Black Phone 2. I said I have no expectations—let's wait until it's released. He probably thought I was brushing him off, but I was serious. This is my attitude toward all horror sequels now: don't anticipate ahead of time, don't dismiss ahead of time, wait until the film comes out and watch it before making judgments.

Black Phone 2 is scheduled for 2025. The exact month wasn't confirmed when I wrote this article—some say summer, others say the Halloween slot. The Halloween slot is prime time for horror films; Blumhouse releases many of their films in October.

I'll go see the premiere. No matter how it turns out, I'll go. After over a decade, I can't break this habit.

I have a friend who works in film distribution. When we had dinner last year, he said the horror film market has changed a lot in recent years. Streaming has taken a large chunk of the audience; fewer people are willing to buy tickets for horror films in theaters. But The Black Phone, Smile, Insidious 5—these have proven that as long as the quality is there, audiences will still go to theaters. He said theatrical horror is now going in two directions: low-budget surprise types, and IP sequels. Black Phone 2 belongs to the latter.

News of the sequel's production was confirmed in early 2024, when the script was already finalized. Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw will both return as Finney and Gwen. These two young actors performed very naturally in the first film, without that greasy child-star quality. I specifically wrote a paragraph praising them on my blog at the time. They've grown a few years older now; the sequel's characters should be adjusted accordingly.

I'm not writing this article to make recommendations or predictions. Long-time readers of my blog know I don't do that anymore. I just want to organize the information I know before the film is released, to record my thoughts. After it's released, I'll write another piece, and then we'll see how much my current thoughts differ from my judgment at that time.

I started writing horror film reviews in 2008. Seventeen years. I've seen this genre's low points, and I've seen its revivals. Black Phone 2 is just another film to me. I'll watch it, write something, then wait for the next one.

The process itself is pretty good.