Black Phone 2 (2025)
Directed by Scott Derrickson
Four years after defeating The Grabber, Finney Blake is struggling with life after captivity. When his younger sister Gwen begins receiving calls in her dreams from the Black Phone and seeing disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp, the siblings become determined to solve the mystery and confront a killer who has grown more powerful in death and more significant to them than either could imagine.
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33 films that influenced Black Phone 2
What critics say influenced Black Phone 2
…makes unabashed nods to the Nightmare on Elm Street films…
There’s also a sly thread of homage running through Black Phone 2 that connects it to A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, particularly the original and Dream Warriors.
There is lots of 80s Grrl Power here that seems to draw inspiration from the Nightmare on Elm Street (1984-1997) franchise…
The writer director does name two obvious influences by name (A Nightmare on Elm Street, as well as The Shining), crediting most of the feel of the film to 1982 slasher movies.
…at times this strays perilously close to Nightmare On Elm Street territory, with danger in both the heavily grained video of the dream world and the crisply shot real one to be faced and fought.
Every dream in A Nightmare on Elm Street was totally different; each kill was presented with all kinds of wild gore and prosthetics.
You might expect something reminiscent of The Shining given the Stephen King energy present throughout the first film, but you’ll end up mostly getting an experience that feels like the later Nightmare on Elm Street films; DNA from a bevy of slashers made its way into this one, but Black Christmas and Friday the 13th stood out to me as notable ancillary inspirations.
Oh yes, it’s very much A Nightmare on Elm Street meets Friday the 13th, but only in good ways.
…it stops trying to be Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Stranger Things all at once and starts actually becoming them.
This studio is trying so incredibly hard to make The Grabber one of horror's iconic slashes, alongside the likes Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Vorhees.
Director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Scott Cargill evidently felt the best way to accomplish this was a mashup of the summer (well, winter) camp slasher vibes of Friday the 13th with the somnambulant escapades of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
…drawing from a patchwork of sources that includes Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Stranger Things, and even the analog, Super-8 texture of Derrickson and Cargill’s Sinister series…
The writer director does name two obvious influences by name (A Nightmare on Elm Street, as well as The Shining), crediting most of the feel of the film to 1982 slasher movies.
You might expect something reminiscent of The Shining given the Stephen King energy present throughout the first film, but you’ll end up mostly getting an experience that feels like the later Nightmare on Elm Street films; DNA from a bevy of slashers made its way into this one, but Black Christmas and Friday the 13th stood out to me as notable ancillary inspirations.
…set near the Overlook from THE SHINING (the red-coiled space heaters do give the cabin interiors a Hellish glow)…
In a film that plays like "A Nightmare on Elm St." without the humor crossed with "The Shining."
…while the frostbitten weather recalls The Shining — which of course sprang from the mind of Hill’s father, author Stephen King.
Just think how many incredible, iconic horror movies are set against a snowy backdrop – The Thing, The Shining, Misery…Black Phone 2 is not one of them.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Directed by Chuck Russell
Visuals Characters Plot
The finale is directly lifted from Dream Warriors.
I guess I always knew that, given my predilection for “X-Men” stories, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”, “Stranger Things,” “Doctor Sleep,” and more.
By the film’s 3rd act, Black Phone 2 devolves into Dream Warriors territory.
Cribbing off the idea that the dead can still communicate to Finney, Hill, Derrickson, and C. Robert Cargill lean into a Freddy Krueger-style mechanic. The undercurrent of Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors is hard to ignore, and while Black Phone 2 is never quite as effective as that movie, there’s clear admiration from the crew involved.
…a little more Freddy in Dream Warriors than he deserves.
…our gang of ghost hunters play out their interdimensional battles with him as though this were A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors – on ice…
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…drawing from a patchwork of sources that includes Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Stranger Things, and even the analog, Super-8 texture of Derrickson and Cargill’s Sinister series…
The music by composer Atticus Derrickson is also spot-on, adding an eeriness to the film that feels very “Stranger Things” or “It Follows” in its treatment.
I guess I always knew that, given my predilection for “X-Men” stories, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”, “Stranger Things,” “Doctor Sleep,” and more.
…it stops trying to be Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Stranger Things all at once and starts actually becoming them.
…although “Mustang,” a teenage cowgirl character, feels like someone out of a Howard Hawks film, not necessarily a Stranger Things-adjacent ’80s horror pastiche.
The notion that ghosts might be scary and helpful was key to The Black Phone, which was based on a short story by Joe Hill.
Where The Black Phone felt unpredictable and alive, Black Phone 2 often feels like it’s following a template.
Yup, the Grabber, The Black Phone’s child murderer, is back.
And hey, didn’t The Grabber die in The Black Phone? How do we get around that?
Set after the events of The Black Phone, the new Blumhouse feature seeks to deepen the lore.
Sure, it’s not as original as The Black Phone (2021), but it’s still fun, moving, and allows for universe-building…
This switch liberates Derrickson from the by-now mundane requirements of telling a typical horror story, allowing him instead to indulge the unsettling stylization of the kind that made previous efforts like Sinister so successful.
And while it’s not a slasher and more of a creative predecessor to The Black Phone, I do have to note that we’re so back in terms of Sinister vibes. Fans of that film will be pleased with how these ghosts evoke the eeriness of that film’s children. The dream sequences here also capture the haunting nature of the Super 8 segments Sinister is notorious for.
From the start of his career with the direct-to-video Hellraiser: Inferno and onward through The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, and The Black Phone, Scott Derrickson’s understanding of sin and repentance have colored his work in ways both vital and strange.
Much like James Ransone, the comedic MVP of both Sinister and The Black Phone, Black Phone 2 benefits from a genre ringer in Demián Bichir…
However, it was not until his partnership with writer C. Robert Cargill, beginning with Sinister in 2012, that Scott Derrickson’s strengths as a director really began to shine.
…his underrated 2012 horror film Sinister…
Throughout, Derrickson continues his preoccupation with good vs evil and trials of faith seen in previous works like The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005) and Deliver Us From Evil (2014)…
Director Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) is still at the helm of this horror franchise…
Picking The Exorcism of Emily Rose (dir. Scott Derrickson, 2005) off the shelf in a Hollywood Video store in preparation for a sleepover is a well-cherished memory for this horror fan.
Here, as in Derrickson’s earlier The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Deliver Us From Evil, a supernatural story is heavy-handedly framed in Christian terms.
Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill are a match made in hell, a devilish duo responsible for Sinister (once declared the scariest movie of all time), The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and The Black Phone.
…his The Exorcism of Emily Rose was pretty good…
…it captured a nostalgic small-town dread reminiscent of “Halloween’s” Haddonfield.
This studio is trying so incredibly hard to make The Grabber one of horror's iconic slashes, alongside the likes Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Vorhees.
Just think how many incredible, iconic horror movies are set against a snowy backdrop – The Thing, The Shining, Misery…Black Phone 2 is not one of them.
Yes, the Grabber skating sequence is a direct montage to Curtains.
The winter timing sets it apart from a host of slashers set at campgrounds, while also allowing for references to some lesser-known genre titles like “Curtains” and “Cold Skin.”
…while homaging in a few deeper cuts (Curtains, anyone?)
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…he’s a wimp and she’s a Bible-thumping harridan reminiscent of Carrie White’s mother.
If we wanted to reach back a little bit further, we could even mention The Fury (1978).
The music by composer Atticus Derrickson is also spot-on, adding an eeriness to the film that feels very “Stranger Things” or “It Follows” in its treatment.