The Black Phone 2 (2025)

Black Phone 2 has a few ideas that sound promising on paper. Moving the story forward several years allows the characters to deal with what happened in the first film, and the snowbound camp gives the sequel a very different setting. There's also the obvious appeal of bringing Ethan Hawke back into this world. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of the movie waiting for the story to build the kind of tension I wanted, and it rarely did.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the pacing in the original Black Phone, and this sequel has a similar problem for me. It often feels like scenes take longer than they need to. The characters move through a series of unsettling dreams and discoveries, but I didn't feel a strong sense of forward momentum. Instead of getting caught up in the mystery, I kept waiting for something to push the story into another gear.

The new winter setting looks good, and there are some effective images. I also appreciate that the sequel doesn't simply repeat the first movie's exact setup. There is an effort to expand the supernatural side of the story and make the characters' experiences matter beyond one confrontation. I just don't think all of those elements are particularly compelling once they're stretched across a feature film.

Ethan Hawke remains an interesting presence, but his involvement wasn't enough to make the film exciting for me. There were a few moments that worked as horror, and I can see what the filmmakers were trying to achieve with the bigger mythology. The problem is that none of it really grabbed me emotionally or kept me on edge.

I know fans of the first movie may enjoy spending more time with these characters and learning about the mythology. As someone who wanted the sequel to tighten up the storytelling, I came away disappointed. Black Phone 2 has a stronger visual identity than some sequels, but it still felt too slow, with too little payoff for the time I spent waiting.

Black Phone 2 was one of those movies where I kept thinking it had to be almost over, even when there was still plenty left. I wanted to like it, and I thought the snowy camp setting might make it feel different from the first movie. Instead, I was bored for a lot of it. It felt like everybody took forever to get anywhere and forever to say what they wanted to say.

I understand that these characters have been through something terrible and that the sequel is trying to deal with what happened before. That could have been really interesting. For me, though, the movie never found a rhythm that made me want to keep watching. There were scenes where I thought something scary might happen, then I'd just be waiting again. I wasn't sitting there with my blanket up to my eyes or nervously preparing for the next big scare.

The camp in the middle of winter also distracted me. I know people in colder places are used to snow, but the whole idea of taking a bunch of kids to a camp in those conditions sounded miserable to me. I kept wondering why anybody wanted to be there in the first place. That's probably not what the movie wanted me to focus on, but when I'm not invested in the story, I start thinking about those little things.

There were a few creepy moments, and I can appreciate that the movie tried to do something different with the supernatural part of the story. I just didn't feel frightened very often. I remember jumping once, and that's not much of a reaction from somebody who can jump when an ordinary phone rings loudly in a quiet theater.

I didn't leave angry because the movie was too disturbing or because something happened that I couldn't handle. I left feeling like I'd spent a long time waiting for a movie to get interesting. If you loved the first one, maybe returning to these characters will be enough. For me, I don't feel any need to watch Black Phone 2 again.