The Black Phone 2, the sequel to the original The Black Phone (2021), was released on October 17, 2025. The sequel takes place in 1982, four years after Finney (played by Mason Thames) defeated The Grabber in the first movie. The plot follows Finney’s younger sister, Gwen, who has begun having visions and nightmares of The Grabber kidnapping characters from the first movie, including her own mother. She then begins having nightmares of The Grabber and sees him taking and killing young boys at a winter camp that her mother used to attend.

The movie is a horror or thriller film and is rated R for strong violence content, gore, teen drug use (primarily cigarettes), and persuasive language. Specifically, the film shows lots of strong violence, including the death of young children and lots of gore.

I went to see the movie on its release day with a close friend of mine, whom I also watched the first movie with. We both really enjoyed the movie for many reasons. For me personally, the acting was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

The actress who played Gwen, Madeline McGraw, portrayed the character of Gwen with such emotion and depth that I got goosebumps during some scenes in the movie. In an interview conducted by host Zach Sang and producer Dan Zolot on the Zach Sang Show, Madeline McGraw said, “I was in a very dark place while filming Black Phone 2… I was just going through certain things mentally and like some struggles in my life that honestly kind of helped me put a lot of stuff into [playing Gwen] because she’s struggling drastically in this film.”

Another aspect of this movie that I really enjoyed was how, even though it is a sequel, the movie also acts as a prequel, where the characters learn of how The Grabber got his start as a serial killer. The visions and nightmares that Gwen has throughout the film show The Grabber taking his first victims at a Christian winter camp called Alpine Lake Youth Camp. These events took place in 1954, when Gwen’s late mother attended the camp as a counselor the same year.

The audience sees multiple gory scenes throughout the movie where the audience sees The Grabber kidnapping three young boys from the camp named Felix, Spike, and Cal. The film portrays these incidents by having the camera footage appear grainy and more eerie, like they were filmed on a vintage camera. The crew filmed Gwen’s flashbacks, visions, and nightmares in this style using Super 8 footage. This made the movie have more of a disturbing and unnatural feel to it, which matched the overall plot of the movie very well. 

In an interview conducted by The AU Review, the director of Black Phone 2, Scott Derrickson, said, “The cinematic qualities of the Super 8 usage in particular were something I was really trying to both be reminiscent of the film of the era, but at the same time, we’re trying to make a movie that doesn’t look like anything else.”

Black Phone 2 earned $26.5 million during its opening week at the box office and earned $42 million worldwide and for good reason. This movie was one of the best horror films that I have seen in a long time, and I will be recommending it for years to come. I personally believe that this movie was better than its predecessor. This film is perfect for anyone who is a fan of the original The Black Phone movie, as well as horror fans in general.