2022 saw the release of The Black Phone to a successfully terrified audience, introducing the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) as a sinister new horror figure in moviegoers’ future nightmares. For writer-producer-director Scott Derrickson, the success of his film was personally gratifying.
“It was extremely rewarding to see audiences embrace the film the way they did, specifically because so much of it came directly from my own childhood,” Derrickson says. “As an artist, seeing those personal feelings and memories connect with so many people—especially young people—added a sense of purpose to the darker memories of my childhood. It made me feel like it was all somehow meant to be.”
The film’s success also meant another opportunity for creativity, stemming from personal experiences, as Derrickson partners with longtime collaborator, writer-producer C. Robert Cargill. “With Black Phone 2, we were able to keep building on characters rooted in our own childhoods and what it was like growing up in the ’70s and ‘80s,” Cargill says. “A lot of our real experiences are buried in these stories. That emotional grounding lets us balance the horror with heart. And it is part of why the first film kept growing after its release. When The Black Phone hit Peacock, it took off even more. Teenagers were watching it, making memes and TikToks, remixing scenes. For a lot of them, it was their first horror movie, and they fell in love with the genre. That is when Scott and I started getting messages every day from people asking, ‘When is the sequel? Is there a prequel? Are you making Black Phone 2?’”
Black Phone 2 has survivors from the previous film, siblings Finn (Mason Thame) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) reliving past horrors as visions of their sinister stalker haunt them. Four years after escaping from the Grabber’s clutches, Gwen starts receiving calls from a black phone in her dreams, and seeing chilling visions of three boys being stalked in a winter camp. Determined to end the nightmare once and for all, they go to the camp and confront a killer who has grown more powerful in death.
One of the core themes of the original film carries on in Black Phone 2, with Derrickson and Cargill exploring trauma and recuperation. “One of the core themes of The Black Phone was the idea of children carrying the sins of their father, and that continues here,” Cargill says. “In this film, Finn is coping in the same ways his father once did. When we meet him again, he’s numbing himself from the past, falling into the same patterns. We wanted to explore how trauma echoes through families and whether that cycle can be broken.”
For producer Jason Blum, Black Phone 2 is an affirmation that the project continues to be as compelling as when he was first drawn to it. “The script for Black Phone 2 reminded me what an incredible foundation Joe Hill’s story gave us, and how brilliantly Scott and Cargill have built on it,” Blum says. “They’ve deepened the mythology while keeping the intimacy of the first film, balancing horror, emotion and character in a way that feels real. That’s what makes great horror—it has to matter, it has to connect—and they’ve delivered that again here.”
Evil returns as Black Phone 2 arrives in Philippine cinemas on October 15. Follow Universal Pictures PH (FB), UniversalPicturesPH (IG), and UniversalPicsPH (TikTok) for the latest updates.
