Black Phone 2 (2025) | Transcript

As Finn, now 17, struggles with life after his captivity, his sister begins receiving calls in her dreams from the black phone and seeing disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp known as Alpine Lake.
Ethan Hawke and Mason Thames in Black Phone 2 (2025)

Black Phone 2 (2025)
Director: Scott Derrickson
Writers: C. Robert Cargill, Scott Derrickson, Joe Hill
Stars: Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, Demián Bichir
Release dates: September 20, 2025 (Fantastic Fest); October 17, 2025 (United States)

Plot: In October 1982, four years after Finney Blake killed the Grabber, his sister Gwen begins having dreams where she sees murders that happened at Alpine Lake Camp in 1957. During one of the dreams, she receives a call from her mother, Hope, who at the time of the murders was having similar dreams.

Determined to understand the truth, Gwen convinces Finney and Ernesto, the brother of the late Robin Arellano, to travel to Alpine Lake Camp, a Christian youth camp where Hope also worked as a teenager. When they arrive, a heavy blizzard traps them there with only a few others: the camp supervisor Armando, his niece Mustang, and two camp employees named Kenneth and Barbara. The three kids begin investigating what Gwen’s dreams might mean.

On the second night, Finney receives a call on the camp’s dead payphone, this time from the Grabber. Speaking from death, the Grabber vows revenge, blaming Finney for forcing him to kill his own brother and for ending his life. Moments later, Gwen is violently attacked in her dream by the Grabber but Finney, Ernesto, and Mustang manage to save her. The shaken group gathers in the camp’s chapel, where Armando and the others realize they must find the bodies of the Grabber’s victims from Alpine Lake Camp to loosen his power over the dream realm. The group deduces that the bodies are beneath Lake Maru.

Black Phone 2

As they investigate further, they discover that Armando, Hope, and the Grabber had all known each other at the camp long ago. That night, Gwen is again pulled into a dream where she faces the Grabber, where he reveals Hope did not commit suicide and he actually killed her, staging it to look self-inflicted. He then attempts to kill Gwen, with her injuries sustained in the dream manifesting in reality. She manages to gain power in her dream and fight back before being woken up by Finney and Ernesto. Meanwhile, Armando is searching for the boys’ bodies. The next day, Finney’s and Gwen’s father Terrence arrives, having borrowed a snowplow to get there. Gwen confronts both Terrence and Finney on their abuse of alcohol and drugs to avoid thinking about their traumatic pasts. They decide to stay to defeat the Grabber and put the murdered boys to rest.

Later, joined by Kenneth and Barbara, the group returns to the frozen lake to recover the three missing boys. As they search, Gwen falls asleep again and is attacked by the Grabber. The Grabber also attempts to murder Finney, Terrence, and the others present. During the struggle, Gwen locates the boys’ bodies beneath the ice, removing the Grabber’s power. The Grabber is brutally attacked by Finney, Gwen, and the spirits of the murdered boys before being dragged beneath the frozen lake by the children. The next day, as Gwen and Finney prepare to leave, Gwen gets a call on the camp’s payphone from Hope, who tells Gwen how proud she is of her along with a message for Finney from Robin.

* * *

Black Phone 2 (2025) | Transcript

(static crackling softly)

(rotary telephone dialing)

(wind whistling softly)

ROCKY MOUNTAINS, COLORADO, 1957

Hello? Hope. Hope Adler. Who is this? Alpine Lake. It-it’s a youth camp in the mountains. I, um… I had these dreams. Seven numbers. No area code, so this call is local. You’re here in Colorado, right? The numbers were carved in ice. Yes. Yes. Who is this? Who are you? Hello?

(static droning over phone)

Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?

(high-pitched tone over phone)

(gasps)

(breath trembling)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

NORTH DENVER, 1982

STUDENTS (chanting): Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Fight! Fight! Fight!

(students clamoring)

(students groaning, laughing)

(groaning)

STUDENT: Got to get up, man.

GWEN: Finn! Finn!

STUDENT: You’re hurting him!

Finney!

STUDENT ON GROUND (panting): Please, stop. Please.

You done yet?

(students groan)

STUDENT ON GROUND: Yes.

FINN: Stay the fuck away from me. (Finn grunts)

(students groaning)

FINN: Anyone else?

(students murmuring quietly)

GWEN: Hey. What the hell was that?

FINN: New kid.

GWEN: Are you just beating up new kids now?

FINN: He started it.

GWEN: What was it this time?

FINN: Uh, the usual. “Heard you were the badass that wasted a serial killer. You don’t look so tough.”

GWEN: He didn’t really say that.

FINN: Yeah, he actually did.

GWEN: Did you have to go so hard on him?

FINN: In a situation like that, the more blood, the better-for the crowd. Proves a stronger point.

GWEN: You’ve made that point more than once, so may-be-and I’m just spit-balling here-maybe the point you’re actually making is less “don’t fuck with me” and more “I’m the guy to beat.”

ERNESTO: Hey, Gwen, Finn. Great fight, man.

FINN: Thanks, Ernesto.

GWEN: Hi, Ernie.

ERNESTO: So, uh, tonight, uh, I’m going to go down to the Civic Center to wait in line for Duran Duran tickets.

GWEN: Duran Duran tickets?

FINN: He just said that.

GWEN: Simon Le Bon is so choice.

ERNESTO: A-Are you going, Gwen?

GWEN: I wish. Those tickets cost a mint.

ERNESTO: My treat. I was gonna buy two anyway. It’d, you know, be cool to have someone to go with who’s… who’s also a fan.

GWEN: For real?

ERNESTO: For real.

GWEN: That’d be radical.

ERNESTO: Consider it done. All right, well, I-I got to get to shop class.

GWEN: See ya.

(car departing)

FINN: You know that’s a date.

GWEN: No, it’s not.

FINN: Yeah, it is.

GWEN: Okay, so what if it’s a date?

FINN: I don’t know, I… I just don’t like him.

GWEN: I don’t get why. He’s really nice. Besides that, don’t you think Robin would want you looking out for his kid brother?

FINN: But that doesn’t mean letting him boink my little sister. Ow.

GWEN: Don’t be gross, jizz mopper.

(“Subways of Your Mind” by FEX playing)

ANNOUNCER: Welcome back to Night Flight. Here’s German band FEX with their new hit, “Subways of Your Mind.”

♪ ♪

Night, son. I’m off to bed.

FINN: Night.

Don’t stay up too late.

FINN: Yeah, sure.

♪ Take the consequence of living ♪

♪ There’s no space ♪

♪ There’s no tomorrow ♪

♪ There’s no sense, communication ♪

♪ Check it in, check it out ♪

♪ But the sun will never shine… ♪

(door creaks)

(crickets chirping)

(wind gusting)

(dog barking in distance)

FINN: If you try to touch me, I’ll scratch your face.

GRABBER: This face?

GWEN: Hey. … Still not my thing.

FINN: Don’t tell Dad.

GWEN: Fuck off, slap-dick. I’m no narc. You okay?

FINN: I’m fine.

GWEN: No, I-I mean…

FINN: I don’t want to talk about it.

GWEN: It’s okay that you feel this way.

FINN: You don’t know how I feel.

GWEN: No, but… I know, however you feel, it’s okay.

(static crackles)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(static crackling)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(static crackles)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(phone ringing loudly)

(breath trembling)

(phone continues ringing in distance)

(phone continues ringing)

(ringing continues in distance)

(phone continues ringing)

(ringing continues faintly in distance)

FINN (muffled): Hey, what are you doing? Hey. Hey, Gwen.

FINN (clearly): Gwen, wake up. What are you… Why are you so cold?

GWEN: Finn?

FINN: It’s okay. You were sleepwalking again. Jesus. Your skin is like ice.

GWEN: I had a bad dream.

FINN (sighs): It’s okay. Just… go back to bed.

GWEN: I-I said I had a bad dream.

FINN: I heard you. Just go back to bed.

(school bell ringing)

Hey, witch.

(students chattering quietly)

(laughter)

ERNESTO: Hey, Gwen.

GWEN: Hey, Ernie.

ERNESTO: Check it out.

GWEN: Oh, choice. I can’t believe it.

ERNESTO: So, uh, you’re into a lot of that… that woo-woo stuff, right?

GWEN: What? You mean ghosts? Spirits? Glimpses of the world beyond?

ERNESTO: Yeah.

GWEN: Okay, then. Yeah, I believe in all that woo-woo stuff.

ERNESTO: Cool. Uh, I-I brought you something else.

GWEN: Ernesto, is this lotería?

ERNESTO: Yeah. My abuela sells them in her shop, and I thought they looked cool. They’re like tarot.

GWEN: These are beautiful. I mean, you can use them like tarot. If you have the sight, they can show you things.

ERNESTO: And you have that, right?

GWEN: Have what?

ERNESTO: Oh, I mean, like, you have… you have dreams and stuff, and they… they show you things?

GWEN: Where did you hear that?

ERNESTO: My parents. Back, you know, they said that the police got an anonymous call where… where, um, Robin’s body was. But they say it was you. That you dreamed it. Or-or something.

GWEN: I don’t like talking about that.

ERNESTO: Mm, why not?

GWEN: ‘Cause it’s weird. I’m weird.

ERNESTO: Maybe I like weird.

(entry bell jingling)

(phone ringing)

FINN: I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.

(static crackles)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(static crackling)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(phone ringing loudly)

(phone ringing in distance)

(ringing stops)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(phone ringing in distance)

(phone continues ringing)

(ringing grows louder)

(phone continues ringing)

(ringing stops)

GWEN: Hello?

HOPE (over phone): Hello?

GWEN: Who’s this?

HOPE: Hope. Hope Adler. Who is this?

GWEN: (breath trembling) My name is Gwen. Where are you calling from?

HOPE: Alpine Lake. It-it’s a youth camp in the mountains.

GWEN: How did you get this number?

HOPE: I, um… I had these dreams. Seven numbers. No area code, so this call is local. You’re here in Colorado, right?

GWEN: Yes.

HOPE: The numbers were carved in ice.

GWEN: By boys. Underwater.

HOPE: Yes. Yes.

GWEN: I had the same dreams, but the boys carved letters.

HOPE: Who is this? Who are you?

GWEN: My name is Gwen.

(static crackling over phone)

HOPE: Hello?

GWEN: I-I said my name is Gwen.

HOPE (breaking up under static): Hello? Can you hear me?

(static droning over phone)

(line clicks, static stops)

GWEN: (gasping breaths)

FINN: You shouldn’t be here.

(door clanks)

(door clanks, creaks open)

(footsteps slowly descending stairs)

(phone ringing)

(footsteps continue)

(Gwen’s breath trembling)

(footsteps approaching)

FINN: Hey. Hey, Gwen. Gwen.

GWEN: Am I really here?

FINN: You’re okay. You were sleepwalking again. You came here in your sleep. I heard you leave, and I followed you.

GWEN: I feel like I’m crazy. What the hell?

FINN: Hey, hey. Look at me. Hey, hey.

GWEN: What the hell?!

FINN: You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.

GWEN: I-I was on the phone. Finn. I was talking to Mom.

FINN: It was just a dream.

GWEN: N-No, it was… a dream, yeah, but it was her. She called me. From a youth camp.

FINN: A youth camp?

GWEN: She reached out to me from there for a reason.

FINN: Come on. Let’s get you out of here.

FINN: (spits)

FINN: What’s this?

GWEN: Camp Alpine Lake. The camp Mom called from. We have to go there.

FINN: Gwen, stop this. It was just a dream.

GWEN: About a real place. A place I found. It’s why I had the dream.

FINN: (sighs)

GWEN: It’s a Christian youth camp up near Silverthorne.

FINN: What’s this?

GWEN: They’re accepting applications for CITs for middle school winter camp.

FINN: What’s a CIT?

GWEN: Counselor in training.

FINN: No… (stammers) I’m not going to be a counselor for junior highers at some weird Jesus camp you dreamed about.

GWEN: No, you’re going to be a counselor in training.

FINN: No, I’m not.

GWEN: Come on.

FINN: Dad has been hounding you to get a job, and this is a job that pays.

GWEN: And we can find out what Mom…

FINN: I said no.

(footsteps approaching)

TERRENCE: What’s going on in here?

FINN: Uh, Gwen wants us to get jobs at some Christian winter camp.

TERRENCE: Not Camp Alpine. Hmm.

(flipping through brochure)

TERRENCE: Your mother worked there.

GWEN: Wh-When?

TERRENCE: Uh, it was long before I met her. It closed in ’58. How’d you hear about this place?

GWEN: Uh, um, I-I had…

FINN: Some kids at school. Said it was a good way to, uh, make some money.

TERRENCE: Christian camp. You guys, you know I don’t… much like any of that religion stuff, you know?

GWEN: It-it’s just a job, Dad.

TERRENCE: (groans)

GWEN: Mom worked there. I’m not crazy.

FINN: I never said you were crazy.

TERRENCE: Don’t let me hear you took that thing any faster than 55.

ERNESTO: Y-Yes, sir.

TERRENCE: I would like my daughter back unscathed. Do you understand?

ERNESTO: Yes, sir.

TERRENCE: Do you say anything else?

ERNESTO: Yes, sir. Uh, uh, I-I mean…

TERRENCE: I don’t like the way he looks at her.

FINN: Yeah. Me, neither. Damn it. Wait!

GWEN: “Wait,” what?

TERRENCE: Good. Go look after your sister.

FINN: Do me a favor while I’m gone.

TERRENCE: Yeah, anything, son.

FINN (sighs): Don’t get drunk.

TERRENCE: Hey, come on. When are you gonna believe I’m done with all of that? In two weeks, I get my three-year chip. I’ll have it when you get back.

FINN (sighs): See you in a few weeks.

TERRENCE (chuckling): Okay. Great. Finally get some peace and quiet around this place. (short chuckle)

(door opens and closes)

(“Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1” by Pink Floyd playing)

♪ A snapshot

in the family album ♪

♪ Daddy, what else

did you leave for me? ♪

♪ Daddy, what’d you leave

behind for me? ♪

♪ All in all, it was

just a brick in the wall ♪

♪ All in all, it was

all just bricks in the wall. ♪

♪ ♪

ERNESTO: I can’t see the road.

GWEN: This isn’t safe. We could drive off a cliff and not even see it.

FINN: Stop the car.

(Finn sighs)

GWEN: What are you doing?

FINN: I’m gonna run in front of the car so I can see the road. Just follow me.

(wind howling)

♪ ♪

MUSTANG: Follow me!

MUSTANG: Mando! I found your stray CITs.

MANDO: Straight ahead about 20 yards. Park anywhere. … Thank you. You must be the Blakes.

FINN: Yeah, how’d you know?

MANDO: Oh, they closed I6 at Silverthorne. You’re the only ones who didn’t get the call in time. I’m Armando. Or just Mando, if you like. Come on. Come with me. Let’s get you inside.

FINN: What about all the kids? Aren’t they supposed to arrive tomorrow?

MANDO: Camp’s canceled. They won’t plow the roads until the storm passes.

GWEN: How many people made it here?

MANDO: Just you three. Support staff has only been here a week, but otherwise, you’re it. I’m sorry to say it, but for now you’re stuck here.

♪ ♪

MUSTANG: Come on, Gwen. You’re with me.

MANDO: This is it. Take any bunk you want. Heaters are on, so just give ’em a few minutes. It will be toasty in no time, all right? Have a good night, kids. Sweet dreams.

GWEN: I got to sleep in here alone?

MUSTANG: Afraid so. State law requires separate housing for male and female minors. I’d stay in here with you, but I’m not a registered counselor, so no can do. But my cabin is just over there, if you need anything. Night.

(wind howling)

(lighter clicking)

(wind continues howling)

(static crackling)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

GWEN: (gasps)

(wind continues howling)

(static crackling)

(phone ringing)

(ringing stops)

(scraping)

(scraping continues)

(phone ringing)

FINN: I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. (breathing heavily)

(phone ringing)

(prolonged ringing)

(prolonged ringing continues)

FINN: Who is this?

(static droning over phone)

♪ ♪

(scraping)

♪ ♪

FINN: Hello? Is anyone there?

GRABBER (over phone): Hello, Finney. (grunting)

(phone ringing)

FINN: (yelling)

GWEN: (breathing heavily)

(sizzling)

GWEN: (startled yelp)

(phone ringing)

(ringing stops)

GRABBER: Hell is not flames, Finney. It’s ice.

GWEN: (breathing heavily) (Gwen whimpering)

GRABBER: Nothing burns like the cold.

(gasping weakly)

GWEN: (screaming)

(gasping weakly)

(Gwen screaming)

(Gwen screaming in distance)

FINN: Gwen. Gwen!

(screaming continues)

FINN: Gwen, Gwen, Gwen! Hey, Gwen, Gwen, look at me! Hey, hey, look at me! Wake up! Wake up!

GWEN: (sobbing) Hey, hey. What’s happening to me? Oh, God, I feel crazy.

FINN: You were dreaming. You’re okay. You’re okay.

GWEN: I feel crazy.

FINN: You’re okay. You’re okay.

GWEN: (continues sobbing)

FINN: You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.

(wind howling)

ERNESTO: Gwen.

GWEN: I had a bad dream.

ERNESTO: Okay. Y-You… you all right? Here, uh… lie down.

(wind howling)

GWEN: Jesus… please don’t let me have another dream tonight. Please.

ERNESTO: Hey. Y-You okay?

GWEN: Yeah. Did I wake you?

ERNESTO: No. Was that for real?

GWEN: What?

ERNESTO: You talk to Jesus just like that?

GWEN: Yeah. You think it’s weird?

ERNESTO: Uh, no. No, not-not at all. I th… I think it’s hot.

GWEN: You think it’s hot that I talk to Jesus?

ERNESTO: Yeah. I mean, it might even be hotter if you called him (Spanish pronunciation): Jesús. You know, my mom is Catholic as hell. She’d love me dating somebody who prays.

GWEN: We’re dating?

ERNESTO: Uh, um, I mean, I was… I was just saying that…

GWEN: I’m a good Christian girl?

ERNESTO: Sure. Why not?

GWEN: My mom was Christian, too. Dad didn’t want us brought up in the church, but… I asked a lot of questions. And when he wasn’t around, she answered.

ERNESTO: Did she know about your dream thing?

GWEN: I got it from her. It drove her crazy. I’m scared the same thing will happen to me.

ERNESTO: It won’t. You’re too strong for that.

GWEN: You don’t think I’m a freak?

ERNESTO: What’s wrong with being a freak?

GWEN: I’m a freak like my mom.

ERNESTO: Were you close to her?

GWEN: Yeah. I think about her every day. I can still see her face so clearly. She was beautiful.

ERNESTO: I think… you’re beautiful.

FINN: What about me? Do you think I’m beautiful?

GWEN: Finn, you rotting shit stain. Have you been listening this whole time?

FINN (sighs): Well, I’m still right here, so it’s not like I had any choice.

ERNESTO: I-I thought he was asleep.

FINN: Told you Duran Duran is a date.

(wind continues howling)

FINN: Ernesto, I need to talk to Gwen alone.

GWEN: If it’s about last night, he knows.

FINN: Knows what?

GWEN: Why do you think he’s here? He came to help us investigate.

FINN: Wait, you told him about your dreams?

ERNESTO: Hmm. Yeah, Finn, I know about her dreams. And about the calls that you get.

FINN: Gwen.

GWEN: We can trust him.

FINN: Okay, but it wasn’t yours to tell. Okay, I haven’t told anyone.

GWEN: Because you don’t have any friends.

FINN: I… I have friends.

GWEN: Name one. One you’ve brought home to hang out. One you’ve even mentioned in a conversation at all.

FINN: Gwen, it wasn’t yours to tell.

GWEN: I have to tell somebody, Finn. You never want to hear about my dreams.

FINN: That’s not true.

GWEN: See this? This happened last night in my dream. One of the kids grabbed me.

ERNESTO: In… in your dream?

FINN: Gwen, this is bad.

MANDO: Morning, campers! Another glorious God-given day here at Camp Alpine Lake. Breakfast in the mess hall. Come get some grub!

MANDO: News reports say this is the worst blizzard since ’46. Denver is shut down. Best-case scenario is two days, maybe three. It could be longer.

(footsteps approaching)

MANDO: You’ve met my niece Mustang. She works the stables and in the kitchen with me.

ERNESTO: Mustang? Like the car?

MUSTANG: Like the horse.

FINN: Uh, how many other people are here?

MANDO: Just Kenneth and Barbara, who run the offices. Rest of the support staff got out before they closed the roads. So, how did everyone sleep?

ERNESTO: Fine.

FINN: Fine.

MANDO: I noticed you slept with the boys. I can lose my camp license for that. Don’t do it again. Now, for the $64,000 question: Why are you guys here?

GWEN: To be camp CITs.

MANDO: (chuckles) No, I… (clicks tongue) I get that. (stammers) I mean, none of you ever attended here as campers, and none of you listed churches on your applications, so that means you didn’t get one of our flyers. So, why are you here? Huh?

ERNESTO: (speaks Spanish)

MANDO; (chuckles)

FINN: Our mom went here.

MANDO: Oh. Camper or counselor?

GWEN: Counselor. Her name was Hope Adler.

MANDO: “Was”?

GWEN: She died seven years ago.

MANDO: Mm. I’m sorry.

GWEN: Do you remember her?

MANDO: A lot of kids come through here. (mutters) Do you know her camp name? Support staff and counselors, they get camp names. It’s easier for the campers to remember who’s who.

[Gwen shows him a photo of her mum]

MANDO: Starlight. You’re Starlight’s kids?

GWEN: You do remember her.

MANDO: Very well. Sh-She was a true light, that one. Um, I-I’m sorry you lost her. May I ask how she passed?

FINN: She killed herself.

MANDO (sighs): I-I… I’m so sorry. Look, I… I-I’m just glad you guys found us. After you eat, you should call your families and let ’em know you’re okay. There’s a phone in the camp offices.

FINN: Wait, what about the outside pay phone?

MANDO: (scoffs) That thing’s deader than disco. Hasn’t worked in over a decade.

(door opens and closes)

FINN: That dead pay phone rang last night.

GWEN: Did you answer it?

FINN: Yeah. I’m pretty sure it was him.

GWEN: Him?

ERNESTO: Like, “him” him?

GWEN: Oh, my God.

ERNESTO: What’d he say?

(phone ringing in distance)

ERNESTO (stammering): What’d he want? What?

GWEN: It’s ringing again?

FINN: Go call Dad. I’ll meet you when I’m done.

(ringing continues)

(static droning over phone)

FINN: You got something to say? Then say it.

BOY (over phone, staticky): It’s cold here.

FINN: Who is this?

BOY: I don’t remember.

FINN: What happened to you?

BOY 2: We don’t know.

FINN: You don’t remember anything?

BOY 1: There’s three of us.

FINN: Okay. Where are you?

BOY 1: It’s cold here.

FINN: It’s cold where?

BOY 3: And it’s dark here.

FINN: Tell me where you are.

BOY 3: We don’t know.

FINN: My name is Finn.

BOY 2: Help us, Finn.

FINN: You have to try to remember something. How did you die?

BOY 2: We don’t remember. We’re scared, Finn.

FINN: I understand. Okay, what do you…

BOY 2: We’re not supposed to be here.

FINN: What do you mean?

BOY 3: This isn’t where we belong. We weren’t supposed to be here.

FINN: Something bad happened to you?

BOY 3: Help us. Please help us.

FINN: Tell me. Tell me how I can help.

BOY 1: Find us, Finn. Please, Finn.

ALL BOYS: Help us! Please come find us! Come find us! You have to come find us! We don’t want to be here!

(boys all shouting at once)

(shouting stops)

♪ ♪

(over TV): ♪ Time to put aside… ♪

TERRENCE (chuckles): Yeah, we’re snowed in here, as well. You guys just hold tight. I’m sure they’ll have you out of there in no time. Love you, kid. Bye.

(over TV): ♪ Head for Busch Beer ♪

♪ Head for the mountains. ♪

REPORTER (over TV): Welcome back to KMGH News. The blizzard brought the entire area to a standstill as heavy winds and drifts made all the roads impassable.

(rotary telephone dialing)

So much so that police in several cities issued curfews against the vehicles being on the road. And the restrictions still stand to those who violate the order…

TERRENCE: Yeah, Jake, hey. Listen, I need to call in that favor. Has the company fleet finished plowing the property?

(Ernesto speaking Spanish)

GWEN: Excuse me. Do you have any literature on the history of Alpine Lake?

KENNETH: Uh, we have a brochure.

GWEN: Damn. Nothing more in-depth?

BARBARA: No, there is no published history of Camp Alpine Lake. We are a youth camp, not a historical society.

KENNETH: Barbara, these are guests.

BARBARA: No, Kenneth, this is the young lady who decided to sneak into the boys’ cabin last night. So, what exactly can we help you with, sweetie?

ERNESTO: Look, we just want to know about some kids that may have been killed here in the past.

BARBARA: You don’t need to hear anything about that.

GWEN: We don’t?

BARBARA: You don’t. Philippians 4:8 tells us to think on things that are lovely.

GWEN: Philippians 4:8 also says to think on things that are true, just and honest, right, Barb?

BARBARA: Barbara.

KENNETH (stammering): We don’t know the specifics.

BARBARA: This is not some haunted tour or ghost camp. This is a Christian organization. We don’t discuss those kinds of things here.

GWEN: But some fucked-up shit did happen here, right?

BARBARA: Have you always had such a filthy, vulgar mouth?

GWEN: Have you always been such a sanctimonious twat?

KENNETH: Hey, hey, I-I think you two should leave now.

GWEN: Let’s go.

BARBARA: I’ll pray for you.

(owl hooting)

(phone ringing in distance)

(static crackling)

(inhales sharply)

HOPE: Hello?

BOY 1 (over phone): Who is this?

HOPE: Hope. Uh, Hope Adler. Who is this?

BOY 1: I can’t see you. Where are you?

HOPE: Alpine Lake. It’s a youth camp in the mountains.

BOY 1: It’s so dark. How did you find me?

HOPE: I had these dreams. Seven numbers. No area code, so this call is local. You’re here in Colorado, right?

BOY 1: Where were the numbers?

HOPE: The numbers were carved in ice.

BOY 1: The ice of a lake?

HOPE: Yes. Yes.

BOY 1: It’s so hard to remember things here. It’s so cold and dark.

HOPE: Who is this? Who are you?

BOY 1: We don’t remember.

HOPE: Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?

(static droning over phone)

(high-pitched tone over phone)

HOPE: (yelps)

BOY 1: We’re not supposed to be here.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(muffled banging)

(loud banging)

(wind howling)

(door continues banging)

(phone ringing)

(ringing continues in distance)

FINN: Ernesto! Wake up!

(audio muffled)

♪ ♪

(phone ringing)

ERNESTO: You don’t have to answer it, man.

FINN: Yes, I do. You have one job: look after my sister.

ERNESTO: I promise.

(phone continues ringing)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(phone continues ringing)

(ringing stops)

GRABBER (over phone): Hello, Finney.

FINN: What do you want?

GRABBER: It took me a long time, but now I remember.

FINN: You’re dead.

GRABBER: Oh, Finney. You of all people know that “dead” is just a word.

FINN: Tell me why you’re here.

GRABBER: Why do you think I’m here?

FINN: ‘Cause you knew we’d be trapped.

ERNESTO: Gwen? Gwen! Gwen!

(wind howling)

(door creaks, bangs shut)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

GRABBER: Did you think that our story was over, Finney? Did you really believe you could do what you did to me and that would be the end of it?

FINN: I’m not afraid of you.

GRABBER: And why should you be? You killed me. You won.

FINN: (breathing heavily): Tell me what you want.

GRABBER: What I have always wanted with you.

FINN: What? You want to scare me?

GRABBER: You know as well as I do that fear is just the warmup.

ERNESTO: Gwen! Gwen!

KENNETH: Hey!

(Ernesto gasps)

KENNETH: Hey! What are you doing? It’s 3:00 in the morning.

ERNESTO: G-Gwen isn’t in her dorm. I don’t know where she is.

♪ ♪

(flames rumbling)

(loud clattering)

(clattering in distance)

GRABBER: Have you guessed what it is yet? What it is that I want from you? “Want” isn’t even the right word. It’s more of an insatiable need. So, have you got it yet? No? Fine. I’ll just tell you, Finney. What I want is this. I want to hurt you in ways that you can’t even imagine. You will pay for what you did to me. You made me kill my brother, the person on earth that I loved the most! And then you killed me! So now I am going to destroy you, Finney… …by destroying the thing you love most. Vengeance is mine.

(Grabber breathing heavily)

(Grabber chuckling)

(yelping)

(screams, gasps)

(Grabber straining)

(both straining)

(choking)

(growls)

(Gwen gasping, choking)

(door opens)

(choking, gasping)

(all screaming)

(Gwen screaming over phone)

FINN: Gwen! Gwen!

(choking)

(screams)

ERNESTO: Gwen!

(Barbara gasping)

(screaming)

ERNESTO ( grunting): Help me! Help me!

(grunts)

(whimpering)

(grunting)

(Gwen continues screaming)

(both grunting)

♪ ♪

FINN: Hey. Hey. Hey, Gwen. Gwen, wake up. Gwen, wake up.

FINN: (muffled): Gwen, are you awake?

FINN (louder): Gwen, are you awake?

FINN: (softly): Hey.

FINN: (clearly): You awake?

BARBARA: You got the devil in you, child.

(footsteps pacing)

MANDO: (sighs) I’ve been on this earth a lot of years. Seen a lot of things I can’t explain. But I’ve never heard of anyone who got dreams like the ones you describe. Where do you think they come from?

BARBARA: She’s possessed. My God, Mando, isn’t it obvious?

GWEN: I’m not possessed, you judgmental cunt wagon.

(Mustang laughing)

BARBARA: You think this is funny, Mustang?

MUSTANG: You getting your horns clipped? Yeah, I do.

BARBARA: Why don’t you mind your own business?

MUSTANG: Why don’t you stop acting like this is the first creepy shit you’ve seen up here?

BARBARA: Stop it.

MUSTANG: Every single one of us has seen or heard things around here. You especially, Barb.

BARBARA: Barbara.

MANDO: Shut up, both of you. Gwen, your dreams, are you saying they tell you the future?

GWEN: Sometimes. Other times, it’s the dead showing me things from the past.

MANDO: What kind of things?

GWEN: Like the smallest missing boy.

MANDO: Felix?

GWEN: He was running for his life, wearing a yellow down parka. A-And the tallest kid, he wore a white parka.

MANDO: Spike.

GWEN: And scratched letters into the ice above him: “WBH.” I think his head was cut in half on the tree stump in the woods.

BARBARA: Lord in heaven.

GWEN: The third boy wore a denim jacket. He was all burnt up, like he’d been cooked inside an oven.

MANDO: How’d you know that?

KENNETH: Mando.

MANDO: No. (stammers) Gwen, ignore everyone else in the room. It’s just you and me right now. The boy who was burnt up, how did you hear about that?

GWEN: I just told you. He came to me in my dream. He wants me to find him. They all do.

MANDO: (groans)

GWEN: They can’t rest until they’re found.

BARBARA: Whoa. You okay there, Mando?

KENNETH: Mando?

MANDO: (sighs heavily) Burnt pieces of Calvin O’Keefe’s denim jacket were found by police. Only they had that detail. The police, the former camp owner and me.

BARBARA: What about what we saw in the kitchen? That was no dream.

FINN: Have you heard of The Grabber?

MANDO: Yeah. Who hasn’t? He killed a bunch of kids, and then… got killed when one escaped. Yeah, h-his name was Finney something. … Finney Blake. Finn Blake?

MUSTANG: Holy shit.

MANDO: Gwen, when did all this start?

GWEN: Weeks ago, when my mom called me from this camp in a dream. She wanted me to come here.

MANDO: Wh-What does this have to do with The Grabber?

GWEN: It wasn’t the devil attacking me in the kitchen. It was him. I could see him. He’s here.

MANDO: This is from the last year of camp before we closed down. I-I was just the camp cook back then. There’s me, and there’s your mom. After Harlan, the owner, closed this place, I kept coming up here anyway, hiking the area, looking for those kids. Then, when Harlan passed, I bought this place in an estate sale for a song and reopened it. I promised their parents I wouldn’t stop looking until I found them. So, every day, weather permitting, I’m still out walking the trails, digging up every mound of dirt. Not a single morning goes by that I don’t pray for help to find those boys. I didn’t know it was you he’d send. But now that you’re here, I’m not gonna pass up a chance to put those kids to rest once and for all, for-for-for them, for their families and for me.

FINN: No fucking way.

BARBARA: What is it with this family?

FINN: It’s him. It’s The Grabber.

MANDO: Are you sure?

FINN: I know him, and I know his face.

MANDO: That’s Bill. Wild Bill. He worked maintenance. (stammering)  We called him Wild Bill because he wore this brown leather tool belt loose around his waist like a gunslinger, and he got long, wavy hair like Wild Bill Hickok.

GWEN: Wild Bill Hickok. “WBH.” This is where he started. These boys were his first kills.

FINN: And Wild Bill became The Grabber.

GWEN: Mando, when did weird things start happening around here?

MANDO: Mm, not until a few years ago.

FENN: 1978?

MANDO: Sounds about right.

FENN: That’s the year I killed him.

GWEN: And his spirit was set free to come back here.

MUSTANG: Okay, but why would he do that?

GWEN: Maybe his spirit draws power from the fear of his victims because their spirits are not at rest.

MANDO: How do we find these boys?

GWEN: Their bodies are underwater, in a frozen lake, I think.

FENN: But didn’t the police search the local lakes?

MUSTANG: No. Why would they? The lakes were frozen over when the boys went missing.

MANDO: Lake Maru is where we take campers ice fishing, so we store our equipment there. (stammering) Wild Bill used it for the kids’ hockey games. He was a good skater. That’s the only lake where he would have the tools to make a hole in the ice and… dump the bodies.

MUSTANG: Okay, so i-if we find Felix, Cal and Spike, allow them to rest, as you say, that would get rid of The Grabber’s power?

GWEN: I think so. Yeah.

MANDO: Okay, then. At dawn, we head to Lake Maru and look for those boys.

(staticky, warbling tone over radio)

(tone stops)

MANDO: (sighs, chuckles) Very funny, Mustang.

(radio clicks on, static crackling)

GRABBER (over radio): Look what you made me do. You made me kill my brother.

♪ ♪

MANDO: I know you’re out there, Bill. You can’t have those boys forever.

GRABBER: My name’s not Bill.

MANDO: Wild Bill, Grabber. Evil is evil.

(rummaging through drawers)

(Mando taking slow, deep breaths)

(loud thud)

GRABBER (over radio): I want to hurt you.

MANDO: We are gonna get those boys back, Bill.

GRABBER: My name’s not Bill!

(loud thud)

(radio clicks off)

MANDO: (sighs)

MANDO: The devil’s lettuce is not allowed in Camp Alpine property.

FINN: So fire me.

MANDO; (chuckles) (sighs) You’ve really been through it, haven’t you, kid? There’s… there’s a certain look in a young man’s eye. Kind of, um, quiet fury, kind of… deep rage when he’s seen too much or done too much. Get in many fights, Finn?

FINN: So?

MANDO: So, here’s what I know. Behind that kind of anger is fear.

FINN: I’m not afraid of anything.

MANDO: I know one thing you’re afraid of.

FINN: Yeah? What’s that?

MANDO: That you can’t protect your sister. When I was on the streets, I chose the wrong path. Instead of facing my fears, I chose anger. You’re doing the same. I can see it. Finn, son… (stammers) this is what I do for a living. I meet half a dozen kids like you every year. Kids who are told this is who they have to be. You are stronger than you think. You were strong enough to kill The Grabber, and you are strong enough to let what happened with him go.

♪ ♪

FINN: I don’t know how to do that.

MANDO: You got to… face your feelings. You can’t just hold them in and numb it all out. You got to face it, and then you can let it go.

FINN: He wants to kill Gwen, to hurt me.

MANDO: Oh, we’re not gonna let that happen. … I’m taking this with me.

FINN: (sighs) Come on, man. I need that.

MANDO: (groans) I’m doing you a favor. This ain’t even good shit. We head to the lake in an hour, at sunup. Be ready.

FINN: (sighs)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

FINN: Me and Ernesto are gonna take shifts watching you, so… if you have another nightmare, we’ll wake you.

GWEN: What if you can’t?

FINN: Then fight back. I mean, it’s your dream, isn’t it?

GWEN: He makes it more than that.

FINN: What about those books you read about dreaming? You know, there’s got to be something you can try.

GWEN: He’s too strong.

FINN: (sighs softly) I thought that once, too.

FINN: She’s out. (sighs)

ERNESTO: Can I ask you a question? Did you really talk to my brother down in that basement?

FINN: (sighs) Yeah. Yeah, I did.

ERNESTO: Wh-What’d he say?

FINN: He said that your dad didn’t come back from Vietnam because he couldn’t leave his buddies behind. And that he wasn’t gonna leave me behind.

ERNESTO: Yeah? Yeah, that… that was Robin all right. Do you think he’s still here?

FINN: I-I don’t really know what’s on the other side, but there’s something. And I hope it’s good. And I hope he’s there. But if he isn’t, it’s not me he’s here looking after. Wake me in four hours.

(static crackling)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(Grabber groans, laughs)

(cackling)

HOPE: (gasps) (breathing heavily) Wild Bill.

FINN: Nope, nope, no, no. Y-You’re staying in bed tonight.

(static crackling softly)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(voice muted)

♪ ♪

GRABBER: You look like your mother.

GWEN: Why is she in here?

GRABBER: A kindness, really. To you, I mean. A kindness to you.

GWEN: A kindness?

GRABBER: It’s what I can manage.

GWEN: My mom dreamed about Billy Showalter, the paperboy. He was the first kid taken in our area. She figured out you took him, didn’t she?

GRABBER: Isn’t that obvious? The kindness here is me showing you the truth before I do what I have to do.

♪ ♪

GWEN: (gasping)

GRABBER: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

GWEN: (gasping, whimpering) (voice shaking) She didn’t kill herself. You killed her!

TERRENCE (whimpering): No. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. No, no. (sobbing) No! What did you do? What did you do? What have I done? What have… No, no!

GRABBER: This is different than a dream. I conjured this from my hate and from whatever memories hell let me keep. Hell is different than you think. They take the best parts of you, the human parts, and leave only the worst bits, only the sins. I am a bottomless pit of sin.

GWEN: (breath trembling)

GRABBER: What do you think happens when you die in this realm?

GWEN: I’d wake up.

GRABBER: Maybe. Or perhaps… you just die. It’s time to find out.

GWEN: (panting rapidly)

♪ ♪

(phone ringing)

GWEN: Hello?

FELIX (over phone): You have to hide.

(static droning over phone)

GWEN: (panting rapidly)

♪ ♪

(banging)

GWEN: (whimpering) (screams)

ERNESTO: Gwen! Gwen! Wake up! Gwen! Gwen, wake up! Finn! Mustang!

FINN: Gwen.

MUSTANG: What’s wrong with her?

FINN: Gwen. Gwen!

(yells)

(breathing heavily)

MUSTANG (in distance): Gwen!

ERNESTO (in distance): Gwen! Gwen, wake up!

MUSTANG: Gwen!

(static crackling)

♪ ♪

(grunts)

Gwen? Gwen, wake up.

ERNESTO: Gwen!

MUSTANG: Gwen, wake up.

Gwen!

ERNESTO: Gwen, wake up.

Gwen, wake up!

(phone ringing)

(gasps)

FINN (in distance): Gwen, wake up!

ERNESTO: Gwen, wake up!

MUSTANG: Gwen!

FINN: Gwen, wake up!

(phone continues ringing)

MUSTANG: Hey!

ERNESTO: Gwen!

(phone continues ringing)

GRABBER (over phone): Ah, naughty girl, Gwen.

GWEN: Fuck you with a dinosaur dick.

GRABBER: Oh, salty tongue for a girl so young.

MANDO: (grunts)

GWEN: What are you doing?

GRABBER (over phone): If someone tries to take what power I do have away from me, I have every right to defend myself.

(axe thudding on ice)

GWEN: Mando.

(door closing)

GRABBER: Tell the boys I miss them. (grunts)

(ice crackling)

GWEN: Mando!

FINN: Gwen, wake up!

(yelps)

(Mustang grunts)

(muffled grunting)

(grunting, panting rapidly)

(screams)

GWEN: (gasping, choking)

ERNESTO: Gwen!

FINN: Gwen!

GWEN: (choking)

(Grabber grunts)

(Gwen gasping)

(grunts)

ERNESTO: Gwen!

FINN: Keep pressure on it.

ERNESTO: Got it.

FINN: All right, help me flip her over. Gwen.

FINN (over phone): Gwen, wake up. Gwen?

ERNESTO: Gwen?

FINN: Okay.

ERNESTO: Gwen, can you hear us?

MUSTANG: Gwen, wake up.

FINN: Gwen, wake up! Hey, keep pressure on the wound.

ERNESTO: Got it.

FINN: Gwen? Gwen, can you hear me?

MUSTANG: Is she breathing?

FINN: Gwen, come on. You’ve got to wake up, Gwen. Come on. We need help. Gwen, Gwen, if you can hear me, you have to fight back! Gwen, fight back!

(groaning)

GWEN: You didn’t bring me here. I brought myself. I chose to come here, and I can leave when I want. I understand now. In a dream, I have power, too.

GRABBER: So?

(both grunting)

GRABBER: What are you doing?

GWEN: Isn’t it obvious? I’m fighting back, you grievous, festering ass wound. (yelps) See you later, Wild Bill.

(static crackling)

(gasps)

GWEN: Mando.

MUSTANG: Mando!

(all panting)

(all grunting)

ERNESTO: Is he dead?

MANDO: (heavy, shaky breathing) I found… I found Felix. I found him. I found Felix.

KENNETH: Mustang? What time is it?

MUSTANG: About 4:30.

BARBARA: What’s happened? Are you all right?

MUSTANG: Yeah, I’m fine. Mando fell through the ice on Lake Maru.

KENNETH: Oh, no.

MUSTANG: He’s okay, but he found one of the missing boys in the water. We’re all gonna start looking for the other two at dawn. We need your help.

BARBARA: Not with that demon child out there.

MUSTANG: Her name is Gwen, and she is the reason we got to Mando in time. That demon child, she saved his life.

KENNETH: I-I don’t know, Mustang. We…

MUSTANG: You know what? You want to be all yellowbellied and barn-sour, lock yourself in this room until it’s safe, you go right ahead. But that ain’t no kind of true Christian behavior. Sun’s up at 7:00.

♪ ♪

FINN: Gwen! There you are. You okay?

(vehicle approaching)

(Terrence laughs)

FINN: Dad?

TERRENCE: Hey, kids.

FINN: What are you doing here?

TERRENCE: Heard you were snowed in, so I called in a favor.

FINN: Oh, thank God. We can finally get you the hell out of here.

GWEN: We have to stay.

FINN: What?

TERRENCE: What?

GWEN: We have to stay.

TERRENCE: Wh-What’s going on?

GWEN: Our work here isn’t done.

FINN: He’s after her, Dad.

TERRENCE: He’s… Who-who’s “he?”

FINN: Him.

TERRENCE: (sighs) (mutters) I don’t know… Gwen, um… Is this more dream stuff?

FINN: Dad, don’t.

TERRENCE: Okay, we’re getting out of here. Come on. Let’s go.

FINN: I’ll get my stuff.

GWEN: I’m not going anywhere.

FINN: Gwen. He’s going to kill you. Okay, and I can’t stop him. But we have a chance. A chance to protect you, to keep you safe.

GWEN: You’re gonna take care of me, Finn? You can’t even take care of yourself. You are just like fucking Dad, putting your head in the sand and numbing yourself into oblivion.

TERRENCE: Whoa. (chuckling) Where did that come from?

GWEN: You’ve seen what he’s been doing. You’re just ignoring it, pretending you don’t smell it on him, in his room, in the backyard.

FINN: Narc.

GWEN: You can’t narc about what everyone already knows, dingus. You’re just smoking your fucking life away to pretend none of this happened.

FINN: Shut up.

GWEN: Well, it happened, Finn.

FINN: Shut up.

GWEN: And it happened to those kids.

FINN: Shut up.

GWEN: And it’s happening now. And you two just want to run and hide like you always do.

FINN: Shut up.

GWEN: Bottle, joint. Same fucking Friday night.

FINN: Shut up!

GWEN: Anything to stop the pain.

FINN: Shut up!

GWEN: Anything to feel for a few hours like what happened to you down in that basement wasn’t real!

FINN: Shut up! All right, you don’t think I don’t know it was real? You think I don’t fucking know it was real? It’s all I ever think about. All right, you don’t… you don’t know what it was like down there. Nobody fucking knows. All right, I was… (sobbing) I was so fucking scared. (groans) God, I don’t want to be angry anymore. (continues sobbing) … I don’t want to be afraid anymore.

GWEN: Hey. You’re the bravest person I know.

FINN: (breathing heavily)

TERRENCE: Okay. Gwen, look at me, please. I know you want to stay. I know, but if you really are in danger here, we need to leave right now.

GWEN: No.

TERRENCE: (sighs) Sweetheart, I’m sorry, but I’m not asking.

GWEN; What are you gonna do, Dad? You gonna beat me? Take off your belt and whip me into the truck?

TERRENCE: Don’t, don’t…

GWEN: Go ahead and try. See if it works.

TERRENCE: Your mother, right there. There’s your mother. You’re just like your mother. Stubborn! You’re so stubborn right to the end, even in the face of reality.

GWEN: The end? The end? Let me tell you about the end, Dad. Mom didn’t kill herself.

TERRENCE: Okay. That’s it. Let’s all get in the goddamn truck.

FINN: No, no, wait, Gwen. What are you talking about?

GWEN: Mom’s dreams. She was dreaming about a missing kid, wasn’t she? Talking about camp before she died. That’s why you remembered the camp.

TERRENCE: Yeah, but… Yeah, so? So?

GWEN; She found him long before he took Finn, and he saw her, and he came to our house.

TERRENCE: No.

FINN; Holy shit.

GWEN: He showed me that he killed her. Dad, what was the first thing you said when you saw Mom?

TERRENCE: What?

GWEN: You asked her, “What did you do? What did you do?” And you blamed yourself. You said, “What have I done?”

TERRENCE: (breathing heavily)

GWEN: We were asleep when it happened, when you found her. How else could I know what you said? It wasn’t your fault, Dad.

TERRENCE: Oh, my God.

GWEN: And it wasn’t hers.

TERRENCE: Oh, my God.

GWEN: The man who took Finn took her away from us because she was onto him. Because her dreams weren’t just dreams. And neither are mine.

♪ ♪

MANDO: All right, pass me the cable.

GWEN: Hey, Jesus. I’m not doing so well. I need help. Some real fucking help. We got to find those other two boys to take away his power. I’m scared he’s gonna kill me. For real this time. Please don’t let that happen. Get us out of here alive. Don’t let him win.

FINN: (sighs) We’re pretty much out of light.

MANDO: Maybe Spike and Cal are down too deep.

FINN: I was thinking the same thing. We should’ve seen ’em by now.

(conversation continues quietly in distance)

♪ ♪

MUSTANG: Hey, whoa, girl. You’ve done enough for today.

(static crackles)

MUSTANG (muffled): Oh, no, Gwen. Gwen! Gwen, wake up. Need some help!

(panting)

FINN: Hey, Gwen. Gwen, wake up.

ERNESTO: Sh-She accidentally fell asleep.

FINN: Accidentally, my ass.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

KENNETH: (yells)

(Kenneth continues yelling)

FINN: He’s here.

(Kenneth’s yelling continues)

(Barbara whimpering)

♪ ♪

(whooshing)

(Barbara and Kenneth both groan)

MUSTANG: Oh, my God. Ken, Barbara!

FINN: He’s still here. Keep looking.

MANDO: Where is he? Where did he go?

ERNESTO: The ice is breaking!

MANDO: The cable!

(breathing heavily)

(scraping on ice)

TERRENCE: Finn!

FINN: Whoa! (groans)

GRABBER: How the tables have turned.

FINN: (choking)

(Grabber grunts aggressively)

FINN: Ernesto, get her out of here.

GRABBER: I remember the feeling. Breathless, scared, the whole of the world starting to fade away.

ERNESTO: I’ve got Gwen.

Watch out. I’m coming through.

MANDO: You all right?

MUSTANG: Here. Here.

MUSTANG: You got him?

MANDO: Yeah. I got him.

(grunting)

(grunting, panting)

(straining)

(static crackling)

GWEN: “O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”

GRABBER: Scripture? God’s not here. You’re alone.

GWEN: No. I brought friends.

GRABBER: (gruff, heavy breathing)

♪ ♪

(both grunt)

GWEN: The boys are found. You’re powerless.

(Grabber breathing heavily)

(pained squealing)

(grunting, panting frantically)

GWEN: Oh, you’re so fucked.

FINN: Hell isn’t flames, Bill. It’s ice.

(grunting fiercely)

GRABBER: You don’t scare me.

(Gwen grunting)

(pained squealing)

(splashing)

(panting)

♪ ♪

(burbling)

♪ ♪

(ice crackling)

ERNESTO: Hey. You okay?

♪ ♪

FINN: You did good, Dad.

GWEN: It’s over. He’s gone.

FINN: Where’d he go?

GWEN: The boys took him back to where he belongs.

MANDO: Hi. This is Armando Reyes from Alpine Lake. Yeah. Good, good. Yeah. I know it’s-it’s been a minute. The reason why I’m calling is I have some news about Calvin. Yes. Yeah, we finally found him.

(phone ringing)

FINN: What?

GWEN: You can’t hear that?

FINN: Uh-uh.

GWEN: The phone is ringing.

(ringing continues)

GWEN: Must be for you, then.

(ringing continues)

(static crackling)

GWEN: (voice shaking): Hello?

HOPE (over phone): Hi, sweetie.

♪ ♪

GWEN: Mom?

HOPE: Mmhmm. Yeah, baby. I don’t have much time, but it’s me.

GWEN: (sniffles, breathes shakily) Where are you?

HOPE: You know where. It’s beautiful here.

GWEN: (crying) It is?

HOPE: Mm. Yeah, so beautiful. Just like you.

GWEN: (sniffles) I… I miss you, Mom.

HOPE: Oh. I miss you, too, sweetie. But you did so well. You saved those boys.

GWEN: I didn’t save anyone.

HOPE: Yes, you did. You set them free. They’re here where they belong now.

GWEN: Wait. I have to ask you something.

HOPE: Ask me anything.

GWEN: Will I always be this cursed?

HOPE: Oh. It’s not a curse, baby. It was never a curse. I have to go. Tell your brother I love him and that Robin says hi.

GWEN: (sobbing)

(static droning over phone)

(static stops)

♪ ♪

(voice muted)

♪ ♪

TERRENCE: Kids! Time to go. Get a move on.

TERRENCE: So, what do you think of that Ernesto boy?

(engine starts)

FINN: She could do a lot worse.

TERRENCE: How about you?

FINN: No, Dad…

TERRENCE: That Mustang girl seemed pretty cute to me.

FINN: Ah. Dad, please just… just drive.

TERRENCE: Just saying.

FINN: Eyes on the road.

TERRENCE: All right, I’m just saying.

♪ ♪

(singer laughing)

(“You Don’t Scare Me” by 77s playing)

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ If I’m walking in the dark ♪

♪ Dark, dark, dark, dark, dark ♪

♪ You don’t scare me ♪

♪ Killer chasing me

through the park ♪

♪ Park, park, park, park ♪

♪ You don’t scare me ♪

♪ I could ride ♪

♪ On a plane ♪

♪ Losing all ♪

♪ Its engines ♪

♪ Heading straight ♪

♪ Down the drain ♪

♪ I don’t care ♪

♪ I don’t care ♪

♪ I don’t care ♪

♪ I don’t care ♪

♪ ‘Cause I know ♪

♪ No, you don’t ♪

♪ You don’t scare me ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Go for a drive

and hit a rock ♪

♪ Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock ♪

♪ You don’t scare me ♪

♪ Lightning bolt give me

a lethal shock ♪

♪ Shock, shock, shock,

shock, shock ♪

♪ You don’t scare me ♪

♪ I could fall ♪

♪ Down the stairs ♪

♪ Or get stabbed ♪

♪ At the fair ♪

♪ Swallow meat ♪

♪ That’s too rare ♪

♪ I won’t fear ♪

♪ I won’t fear ♪

♪ I won’t fear ♪

♪ I won’t fear ♪

♪ ‘Cause I know ♪

♪ No, you don’t ♪

♪ You don’t scare ♪

♪ Why should I go

the wrong way ♪

♪ Down a one-way street ♪

♪ Against the light ♪

(siren wailing)

♪ Against the heat ♪

♪ When in one moment

you could turn my up-to-date ♪

♪ To obsolete? ♪

♪ And you’re indiscreet ♪

♪ And you don’t repeat ♪

♪ And you’re beat ♪

♪ Beat, beat ♪

♪ You’re so beat ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Though I walk ♪

♪ Through the valley ♪

♪ Of your shadow ♪

♪ So near ♪

♪ I will fear ♪

♪ No man ♪

♪ I will fear ♪

♪ No woman ♪

♪ I will fear ♪

♪ No pain ♪

♪ I will fear ♪

♪ No thing ♪

♪ ‘Cause I know ♪

♪ No, you don’t scare me ♪

♪ Me, me, me ♪

♪ Huh ♪

♪ Uh-huh ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ No ♪

♪ Yeah, uh-huh ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ I’m gonna show you a mystery ♪

♪ You’ll be swallowed in victory ♪

♪ Where’s your stinger? ♪

♪ Yeah, where’s your sting? ♪

(song fades)

Reviews

Scott Derrickson highlights the dreamlike dimension and shoots his own Nightmare, with Ethan Hawke as a new Freddy Krueger and Gwen as the dream warrior. A battle between Good and Evil carved in the snow. Powerful.

by Emanuele Di Nicola

Hell is made of ice, not fire — or so Black Phone 2 openly declares, a film carved in snow from the very beginning. It starts with a prologue that works as a teaser before the title: a phone call from the past. Finney and Gwen’s mother, the protagonists of the first chapter, is calling her children directly from the 1950s, from the winter camp of Alpin Lake.

This is the premise of Scott Derrickson’s new film, the sequel to the 2021 original. It carries forward the seeds of the first but grows into something different. The story of The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), the supernatural serial killer whom Finney defeated with the help of the other young victims intervening from another dimension, is essentially repeated: once again, there are children already killed by the monster but still imprisoned somewhere, and it is from that condition of bondage that the being draws its power. What changes, however, is everything else — the story evolves and gives way to a total, sweeping dreamlike turn.

Black Phone 2 is set in 1982, a few years after the events of the first film. The protagonist, Finney (Mason Thames), is labeled the sole survivor and bullied at school. His ally is his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who has inherited psychic powers from their suicidal mother — she dreams of premonitions and dark revelations. Gwen is haunted by nightmares in which three dead children summon her — each having died in different ways, one burned — all buried in an icy grave at the bottom of a lake. They trace letters onto the frozen surface, forming a “W.” Here Gwen takes full central stage, becoming the main character who will ultimately call for a final reckoning. Meanwhile, Finney tries to ignore the broken phones that ring around him, but soon there’s no other choice: the two must travel to Alpin Lake, where their mother once worked as an instructor, now trapped in a snowstorm that isolates the camp with only a few other people.

So far, however, the Raptor — The Grabber — has not yet appeared. His presence is felt, hovering just out of focus, along with the demonic mask that hides half his face. As often in Derrickson’s work, the story is steeped in religiosity, framed within a Christian setting where Good and Evil battle, peppered with biblical references. The evil entity is given a metaphysical nature — a possible form of the devil himself. To evoke the 1980s, Derrickson and cinematographer Par M. Ekberg play with image texture, crafting scenes in modified Super 8 and Super 16 that border on Analog Horror: that soft, uncertain zone where fear grows from what we cannot clearly see — from grain, blur, and ambiguity — leading us to question the very nature of reality.

Here lies the often devastating power of Black Phone 2. Derrickson dares to rewrite Nightmare on Elm Street for today, with The Grabber as a new Freddy Krueger and Gwen as a modern Nancy. The dream world becomes the battlefield; to fight, one must step inside the dream — echoing Nightmare 3: Dream Warriors by Chuck Russell, filmed in 1987, just five years after this story’s setting.

Gwen too is a dream warrior, rejecting denial and cheap distractions like smoking or drinking. To truly face grief, she closes her eyes and dives into the other dimension, where she finds companions and allies — the dead children who come to help, along with her father and brother. Family, in classic Stephen King style, becomes the weapon of love and solidarity against evil.

Wes Craven’s archetype — the shadow man of dreams — remains the backbone of this second Black Phone, its immaterial flesh. And here Derrickson is at his best: when he sheds the constraints of plot and moral preaching (against drugs, for responsibility) and plunges headfirst into the dream world. For nearly an hour, he delivers a great piece of horror cinema — split faces, wounds in sleep that spill into reality; surfaces like ice and glass used as traps; the gradual emergence of The Grabber culminating in a blood-soaked dream where the daughter witnesses her mother’s murder. It’s free, abstract horror: anti-narrative sequences relying solely on the dark magic of the frame — as Mario Bava once did — restoring cinema to its primal essence of dream and nightmare.

Cinematografo, October 15, 2025

* * *

The Black Phone 2 Review: Scott Derrickson’s Polished Horror That Forgets to Haunt

by Alberto Piroddi

Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone 2 opens like someone revisiting a childhood home after too many years away. The house looks the same, the wallpaper hasn’t changed, but the air feels thinner. Everything is arranged for recognition, not revelation. The film moves through the remnants of its predecessor’s world with a careful, almost devotional touch—those seventies streets lined with yellowed lawns, the fogged light that makes every afternoon look like an old photograph. Derrickson has always been a director who treats horror as an emotional aftershock rather than a genre, yet here his precision feels stiff, as if the memory of fear has calcified into ritual.

The first Black Phone carried its dread like a secret. Beneath the kidnappings and haunted calls was a raw sense of childhood fragility, the fear of being unseen or disbelieved. This time, that feeling has been replaced by structure. The film expands its mythology: more children, more ghosts, more rules. Each new detail promises to deepen the story, but the expansion feels bureaucratic, a ledger of the supernatural. The phone rings again, the dead whisper again, and the audience waits for the echo that never arrives. Derrickson’s talent for atmosphere remains, yet atmosphere alone can’t disguise the fatigue of repetition.

Ethan Hawke’s absence becomes a kind of void that the film keeps circling but never fills. His masked predator in the original was grotesque and magnetic, a portrait of evil that flirted with sympathy. Here, his shadow lingers, invoked through flashbacks and stories, but without his presence, the film’s menace disperses. The new antagonist is a symptom of the same pathology, a ghost of a ghost, and the children confronting him seem trapped in someone else’s nightmare. They cry, hide, and run on cue, yet the terror feels staged, as if rehearsed too long. Derrickson’s direction is graceful, but grace isn’t what horror needs; it needs the stumble, the shock, the sudden collapse of safety.

What’s most striking is the film’s self-consciousness. Every frame seems aware of belonging to a franchise, to a brand of horror designed for familiarity rather than discovery. The camera moves with reverence through basements and corridors, lighting each object as if it carried the weight of lore. Even the black phone itself—once a potent metaphor for trauma speaking through time—has become a kind of logo. Its ring, once electric, now cues recognition instead of unease. The film plays like an afterimage of its own success, flickering but never illuminating.

There are flashes when Derrickson’s old instincts resurface. A scene of a boy standing in a dim field, the faint ring of the phone drifting from nowhere, recalls the earlier film’s elegance—fear as something both intimate and incomprehensible. He still understands how to use silence, how to let a sound or a shadow carry emotional weight. Yet those moments are quickly crowded by explanations. The story keeps pausing to clarify its own mythology, to remind us of rules that no longer matter. Horror thrives on the unknown, but Derrickson keeps translating mystery into procedure. What once felt like a haunting now resembles a briefing.

Visually, the film is immaculate. The cinematography softens the brutality of its subject, wrapping every violent impulse in a haze of nostalgia. It’s a beautiful movie to look at, which might be its biggest problem. The terror never quite pierces that beauty. Derrickson’s framing, his patient compositions, his fondness for chiaroscuro—all admirable—but they cushion the horror rather than sharpen it. The viewer is guided through darkness without ever losing footing, and fear, by nature, needs imbalance. The result is a horror film too polite to frighten.

Derrickson’s fascination with spiritual trauma—his recurring theme—floats through the script like a sermon that lost its congregation. He wants to speak about guilt, redemption, and the residues of violence, yet the story doesn’t give him the space to explore them. The dialogue leans on platitudes; the performances echo sincerity without finding emotion. What once felt confessional now feels prescribed. The director’s sincerity is unmistakable, but sincerity alone can’t animate repetition. It needs discovery, and the film has already mapped its terrain.

The production’s polish reflects the current mood of studio horror, where terror has become a commodity packaged with precision. Blumhouse’s model thrives on reliability: moderate budgets, safe provocations, and endings that reset the balance. The Black Phone 2 fits seamlessly into this system. It’s efficient, professional, and curiously devoid of risk. Every scare is timed, every beat expected, and the result is comfort masquerading as fear. The movie delivers what audiences think they want, yet it withholds what made the first one work—its emotional disorder, its raw awkwardness, that sense of danger leaking through the cracks.

Still, Derrickson can’t entirely suppress his gift for disquieting detail. A child’s glance at an empty swing, a mother staring too long at the phone, the tremor in a voice that knows it will be heard from the other side—these fragments suggest a deeper film trying to breathe beneath the machinery. When Derrickson allows himself to linger in ambiguity, the movie gains dimension. The supernatural stops feeling decorative and starts to resemble memory. But these moments fade quickly, replaced by the usual orchestration of revelation and closure. The story wraps itself too neatly, as if horror were a puzzle to be solved rather than a wound that refuses to heal.

The final act gathers all its pieces—flashbacks, prophecies, spectral interventions—into a spectacle of reconciliation. It’s loud, earnest, and strangely hollow. Derrickson wants transcendence, yet the images dissolve into symmetry instead of catharsis. The film concludes as if trying to assure the audience that all is well, that the past can be explained, that even ghosts follow reason. It’s the kind of reassurance that ruins horror. Nothing lingers once the credits roll, except the sense of craftsmanship applied to emptiness.

Derrickson remains a director of intelligence and feeling, yet The Black Phone 2 shows how easily intelligence can neutralize fear. He builds his horror with the care of a restorer working on a relic, polishing what should remain jagged. The film is made with love, but love, in this case, has dulled the edges. What we’re left with is a sequel that mistakes repetition for continuity and nostalgia for depth—a movie that calls from the past but never quite reaches the living.

* * *

Black Phone 2 review: the nightmare keeps ringing and brings our fears back to life

Black Phone 2 doesn’t reinvent the formula, but there’s something deeply unsettling pulsing at the roots of its story.

by Nicholas Massa

There’s a phone. It keeps ringing and ringing. The metallic, repetitive sound awakens recent memories — terrible flashes of an experience buried deep inside, never fully erased, seemingly impossible to overcome. From the echo of a tone that became the symbol of a story haunting its audience on the big screen, Black Phone 2 emerges and develops — the sequel to The Black Phone, continuing its tale and shouldering the heavy legacy of a modern horror success.

Time has passed since the events fans remember well, and right in the middle of adolescence, that faint call to something painful returns, still unresolved. Released in Italian theaters on October 16, 2025, directed by Scott Derrickson and co-written with C. Robert Cargill, Black Phone 2 retraces the path of a terror rooted in childhood and youthful innocence. This time, however, the film repeats and changes at once — a familiar echo with a different resonance.

Frozen Hell

About four years after the nightmare that made him a survivor of the deepest imaginable terror, Finn faces the invisible scars left by evil. At thirteen, he had managed to escape the clutches of his kidnapper, the infamous “Grabber,” ending his reign of fear. But time doesn’t heal everything — and in Black Phone 2, the past comes knocking again… or rather, ringing — from a place where death has failed to sever the bond between victim and executioner.

Ethan Hawke once again steps into the role that secured his place in contemporary horror: a villain who, in this sequel, transcends the physical world to haunt the realms of memory and guilt. Alongside him are Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw as Finn and Gwen, siblings marked by a trauma still breathing beneath the surface. Now teenagers, they discover that the echo of the black phone was never silenced. Its calls reach through dreams, silences, and snow-covered fields in a place called Alpine Lake.

There, amid disturbing visions and presences that blur with the wind, Gwen follows the traces of an enigma intertwining their fate — past and present — with that of the Grabber. The biting winter becomes the backdrop to a journey of initiation where fear merges with revelation, and family bonds take on darker shades than the siblings could have ever imagined. Black Phone 2 becomes a story of inheritance — not only of evil, but of the courage required to face it.

Deep Wounds

Returning to Finn and Gwen’s lives means stepping into a house where trauma still lives and breathes. Black Phone 2 delves into horror through the fractured psyches of its protagonists — especially Finn — exploring the hidden complications and permanent consequences of such a childhood ordeal.

Pain remains a key constant, not only a tool for character depth but a lens through which the entire narrative is filtered. The film examines post-traumatic stress and a denial so deep-rooted it transforms into anger and the illusion of erasure.

This focus on its characters — young and grown alike — gives the story a credibility that once again makes humanity the central point of analysis, in both its light and darkness. The script also leans into the paranormal dimension, reinforcing connections with the shadows of the first film and expanding the mythos of the black phone itself.

Past and present become the axis of a sequel that works both as horror and as a formal exercise in craft. Through its meticulous visual style, Black Phone 2 reveals a love not only for its material but also for the historical period in which it’s set. There are a few nods (which we won’t spoil) that will delight nostalgic viewers and fans of the 1980s, with references even to more recent titles.

With Scott Derrickson’s dynamic direction and the screenplay co-written with C. Robert Cargill, Black Phone 2 renews a creative partnership that remains solid. The sequel amplifies the psychological tension and metaphysical undertones of the original. While it doesn’t break new ground, it circles back with purpose, adding depth to the story’s emotional and thematic core.

So that phone rings again. Not to scare us, but to remind us that some sounds never truly fade — especially those coming from the past. Black Phone 2 is exactly that: an unexpected call from a number we thought we’d erased, yet one that keeps returning, demanding to be heard. Derrickson doesn’t reinvent horror, but he brings it back to its most intimate and unsettling roots — the kind that creep into the mind and leave no escape, even with the lights on.

Everyeye, October 16, 2025

* * *

Black Phone 2: review of Scott Derrickson’s horror sequel

Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, and a chilling Ethan Hawke star in Black Phone 2, the accomplished follow-up to the 2021 horror hit, directed by Scott Derrickson and released in Italian theaters on October 16, 2025.

by Francesco Costantini

There was no reason to continue after the 2021 film. Or rather, it shouldn’t have been possible to continue after that film. Or perhaps it was. Black Phone 2 arrives in Italian theaters on October 16, 2025, distributed by Universal Pictures International Italy. It’s the sequel to the popular 2021 Blumhouse horror The Black Phone, and the reason it shouldn’t have gone further is simple: the terrifying villain known as The Grabber — black van, mask, kidnapper and murderer of children — was taken out in a rather irreversible way. Yet, since not even death can quench Hollywood’s hunger for sequels, here it is. On paper, it shouldn’t work. And yet it does — because there’s method in Scott Derrickson’s cinematic madness. The director and co-writer, alongside C. Robert Cargill, finds the right key to make the impossible possible.

This horror film that seemingly had no reason to exist does exist, and that’s because its director does the smart thing: he digs into his characters’ psychology and flips the rules of the game. Where The Black Phone was a claustrophobic story — a jailer and his prison — Black Phone 2 opens up its spaces, weaving a more elusive relationship between reality and nightmare. The same characters return, joined by new faces. The story once again draws from Joe Hill’s short story The Black Phone. Cast: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, Demián Bichir, Miguel Mora, Anna Lore, and of course, the sinister Mr. Grabber himself, Ethan Hawke.

The Monster Now Lives in Dreams

The Grabber — though he could well be called Freddy Krueger. Black Phone 2 is set in 1982, four years after the first film. Time has passed, but not for Finn (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw). For them, it’s still 1978. And it’s still The Grabber (Ethan Hawke). Finn, the only survivor of the killer’s rampage and his ultimate executioner, now vents his anger by lashing out at classmates and numbing himself with weed. He’s slightly on the sidelines this time; the focus shifts to his sister, Gwen — fiery, intuitive, and plagued by strange visions.These visions — especially in the first half — are the film’s most striking element. Mangled bodies of children speak to her from a 1950s winter camp, begging to be found, long forgotten by the living. During one of these disquieting dreams, Gwen even meets a young version — around 1957 — of her late mother, Hope (Anna Lore). Within the camp lie horrifying truths about the Grabber’s past, and Gwen must uncover them. There shouldn’t be any danger — the Grabber is dead. And the dead can’t hurt anyone… not exactly.

Black Phone 2 is a smart sequel. Derrickson knows there’s no escaping the question: how do you continue and give meaning to a story that ended so definitively — and successfully — in 2021? His answer unfolds in three moves.
First: he makes a film that’s less about events than consequences. The real villain is the legacy of trauma — Finn, Gwen, and their father Terrence (Jeremy Davies) still live under the Grabber’s shadow.
Second: he overturns the status quo. The original’s confinement gives way to the expansive setting of a snowbound camp, where Gwen, Finn, and Ernesto (Miguel Mora) investigate, helped by a friendly caretaker, Armando (Demián Bichir), while a blizzard heightens the tension.
Third: he finds a way to bring back The Grabber. The man is dead; long live the ghost.If a ghost can’t be touched, seen, or heard in the real world, it must live on in dreams. Gwen’s dreams — surreal visions of death, torn apart by sudden bursts of violence and framed by Pär M. Ekberg’s grainy, dirty cinematography — become disorienting incursions of the irrational into fragile reality. The Grabber returns as a reimagined Freddy Krueger, haunting the intangible space of nightmares to feed his thirst for blood. The shifting line between dream and reality becomes the film’s hypnotic, destabilizing engine of suspense and fear.

A Tale of Two Ghosts: a Killer and the 1980s

Here’s another ghost that’s hard to escape: the 1980s. The obsessive attachment to that decade’s imagery is perhaps the clearest symptom of the American film industry’s double crisis — of identity and originality. Homage only works as long as there’s an original to pay tribute to; what happens when there are no originals left? Yet Black Phone 2 is less derivative than it might appear. It’s more accurate to say that Scott Derrickson knows exactly what he wants — both visually and emotionally — and builds a mythology balanced between deliberate homage and creative invention. Put simply, the film draws from Wes Craven’s iconic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and its sequels, but never turns Ethan Hawke’s terrifying Grabber into a Freddy Krueger of the half-dreaming world just for the easy, crowd-pleasing comfort of walking a well-trodden path.

It would be nice to live in a world where Black Phone 2 landed its punches without relying on pre-existing cinematic mythologies, but its references are handled with restraint. Even the film’s family dynamics — the triangle between father Jeremy Davies and children Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw — avoid the calculated, syrupy sentimentality of mainstream Hollywood storytelling. Here, citation is a means, not an end: Black Phone 2 doesn’t merely portray the physical and psychological burden of trauma, but explores how trauma finds fertile ground in imagination.

Derrickson uses the film to confront horror’s most essential question: how do you give shape to the most intangible thing of all — fear?

To do so, he shatters the barrier between dream and reality, hurling his actors — led by a fierce, magnetic, and sharp-tongued Madeleine McGraw — into a hypnotic half-sleep, a no man’s land of imagination that’s neither pure nightmare nor waking life, where terrors take shape in monstrous forms that vanish the moment they’re touched, only for the fear to begin again.

In the film’s portrayal of ordinary life, nothing matches the disturbing power of its brutal dream sequences — shocking, atmospheric, and unflinchingly violent when needed. Black Phone 2 is a carefully judged balance between originality and inspiration, and it hardly matters that reality never quite equals the emotional and visual strength of its dreamlike scenes. Scott Derrickson has managed to give dignified meaning to a sequel that, on paper, should never have worked.

Evaluation

The claustrophobia of the first film isn’t discarded but reinterpreted. This time, the prison is the mind. To drive the point home, Derrickson fuses nightmare and reality with devilish glee. Black Phone 2 wraps up its conflicts somewhat hastily, weakening an otherwise tense and intricate first half; the “real” narrative lacks the ambiguity and nuance of the dream sequences. Even so, the film boasts an impressive range of strengths: a deeply unsettling atmosphere, a clever interplay between past and present, a hazy dreamlike aesthetic, eruptions of violence charged with emotion and pain, and camerawork more refined than most horror films dare attempt. It can’t completely escape its derivative nature, but it uses homage wisely. You couldn’t ask for much more from a horror film that manages to reopen — sensibly and stylishly — a story that seemed firmly closed.

Cinematographe, October 16, 2025

* * *

The Horror Camp

by Raffaele Meale

Four years ago, thirteen-year-old Finney killed his kidnapper and escaped, becoming the only survivor of the Grabber. Now the Grabber seeks revenge from beyond the grave, targeting Finney’s younger sister, Gwen.

While seventeen-year-old Finney struggles to cope with life after the abduction, his strong-willed fifteen-year-old sister begins receiving phone calls in her dreams from the black phone and experiencing disturbing visions of three boys haunted at a winter camp known as Alpine Lake. Determined to solve the mystery and end the nightmare for herself and her brother, Gwen convinces Finney to travel to the camp during a raging snowstorm.

In the realm of horror, time is an extremely fluid concept. And so, in Black Phone 2—set four years after the first film, mirroring its real-world production gap—Gwen and her brother Finn once again face the Grabber, now risen from the afterlife, beginning with murders committed at a Colorado camp as far back as 1957. Scott Derrickson and his longtime writing partner C. Robert Cargill don’t seem particularly interested in simply picking up the threads of The Black Phone; instead, they look back to one of the most terrifying horror films of the past fifteen years: Sinister—which, fittingly, also starred Ethan Hawke.

The use of 8mm film, the focus on a “domestic” kind of horror where childhood and its corruption are central—these familiar Derrickson motifs return. Of course, Black Phone 2 continues the story where it left off, with Finney strangling the Grabber with the phone cord before escaping and reuniting with his father and younger sister, Gwen. Yet it’s clear from the very first scenes that we’re entering a different kind of cinematic imagination.

Set in the 1980s, the film shows Finn watching Night Flight, the cult TV show created by Stuart S. Shapiro. When Gwen begins to experience nightly visions of the 1957 murders, the viewer’s mind immediately jumps to Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. While the first film was steeped in the mythology of Stephen King—appropriately, since its premise came from a story by King’s son, Joe Hill—this sequel draws instead on the spirit of 1980s horror cinema, making that era both its setting and its touchstone.

The Grabber can return to wreak havoc — even kill — during the dream state, just like Freddy Krueger. When Finn and Gwen assemble a small “team” to confront the monstrous bogeyman, Black Phone 2 clearly reconnects with the Nightmare saga, particularly with its third chapter, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987, Chuck Russell). The idea of a camp haunted by gruesome murders recalls Friday the 13th by Sean S. Cunningham, but also Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp; meanwhile, the frozen, inescapable setting carries echoes of The Shining. One could go on listing influences, because it’s clear that originality isn’t the film’s main goal. Black Phone 2 instead belongs to that dense lineage of works that reclaim and reinterpret the cinematic past.

But this isn’t about copying the expressive codes of a bygone era. Derrickson borrows collective images and archetypes to trace a new line within horror’s shared imagination. His direction is sharp, and the entire film moves across unstable terrain — between physical confinement and psychological entrapment. The kids knowingly lock themselves inside Alpine Lake Camp, aware they can’t postpone the final confrontation forever with a serial killer who has, like any proper demon, survived his own death. At the same time, Derrickson uses open spaces in a disorienting way, as if even in the broadest freedom something lethal and feral still lurks.

He keeps his villain in the shadows for much of the film — the Grabber’s first real appearance comes quite late — allowing the audience to grow closer to the protagonists, to witness their halting steps toward adulthood and their struggle against a malevolent world that might be resisted through faith, not only in the spiritual sense but also in the emotional one.

The Grabber can return during the dream state to cause harm — even death — just like Freddy Krueger. When Finn and Gwen assemble a real “team” to face the terrifying boogeyman, Black Phone 2 ties itself back to the Nightmare saga, especially to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987, directed by Chuck Russell). The idea of a campsite marked by past atrocities evokes Friday the 13th by Sean S. Cunningham, as well as Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp. The frozen, inescapable setting carries hints of The Shining.

The list could go on, because it’s clear that originality isn’t the main key to appreciating Black Phone 2. The film belongs to that broad current of works that consciously reclaim and rework the cinematic past. Yet this isn’t, strictly speaking, a matter of copying the expressive codes of a bygone era; rather, it’s about borrowing shared images and cultural memories to chart a new path within horror’s collective imagination.

Derrickson’s direction is sharp, his eye precise. The entire film unfolds over unstable ground — suspended between real confinement and psychological imprisonment. The kids willingly trap themselves inside Alpine Lake Camp, aware they can’t postpone forever the final confrontation with a serial killer who, like any self-respecting demon, has survived his own death. At the same time, Derrickson makes disorienting use of open spaces, suggesting that even in the widest freedom something feral and deadly is always lurking.

He keeps his villain in the shadows for much of the runtime — the Grabber’s first true appearance comes well into the story — allowing the audience to grow closer to the protagonists, to witness their uneasy passage into adulthood, and to feel the moral uncertainty of a world poisoned by evil, one that perhaps can only be resisted through faith — not solely in the religious sense, but also through emotional conviction and human connection.

Quinlan, October 19, 2025

* * *

Amid snow and nightmares, the director reopens the line to the afterlife — turning Colorado’s mountains into a white hell and renewing Stephen King’s myth of evil. One of the best horror films in recent years.

by Eugenio Grenna

On the snow-covered mountains of Colorado, specifically in the heart of the Alpin Lake Christian camp, there stands a long-abandoned phone booth: a true historical relic. Despite its age, it provides an open line to hell, the afterlife, and the unresolved past of disturbed souls — both victims and perpetrators. This eerie connection is embodied by the two unfortunate siblings, Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who have been haunted since childhood by the long shadows of an initially nameless evil, which eventually gains a mask, a gaze, a voice, and a body: The Grabber.

The Grabber’s presence painfully intersects with themes of grief, the loss of innocence, and the lack of familial affection. This absence of love gives birth to a dark power that must either be carefully guarded or, worse, denied — especially in small, provincial, and evidently bigoted, grim, and desperate family settings. These themes, so central to the story, are deeply rooted in the work of Joe Hill, whose story provided the foundation for Black Phone 2. They also echo the literary spirit of Stephen King, who has long explored the nature of evil in relation to family, and the unexpected bridges between the earthly realm and the “elsewhere” — also known as the afterlife.

At the helm once again is Scott Derrickson, one of the most interesting and effective horror filmmakers (and beyond) of the past twenty years. Two key elements stand out in his cinema, and consequently in Black Phone 2: his ability to maintain a delicate balance between elevated horror and commercial instinct, and his keen exploration of evil, always in dialogue with the symbols and languages of faith. However, in Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s storytelling (the latter being Derrickson’s lifelong friend and co-writer), there is no room for myth. Instead, the focus is on the absolute importance of roots, which exclude any potential fanaticism, while delving deeply into the concept of rationality and collectivity — here made increasingly complex, undefined, and ever-changing.

As mentioned, everything once again revolves around that open line connecting death, evil, and the past. In the previous film, this link existed in the grim, blood-soaked darkness of a basement that revealed itself to be a lethal prison. Black Phone 2, however, directly confronts the challenge faced by so many sequels that lazily rely on the strengths of their predecessors. It takes its characters — and itself — somewhere else, pushing them further into danger and transformation.

This time, the “elsewhere” is physical — the snow-covered mountains of Colorado — yet it’s increasingly undermined by a dreamlike landscape: hauntingly beautiful, deeply unsettling, and governed by the inescapable logic of the nightmare. Within this dream-without-return, the young protagonists find themselves once again trapped (and perhaps liberated) alongside the terrifying serial killer, The Grabber. It’s here that the film’s lineage becomes clear, recalling Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street, Stephen King’s The Shining, and Derrickson’s own Sinister.

Where The Black Phone embraced a classic King-inspired horror framework, this sequel leans far more toward the stylistic and narrative potential of the survival film. Derrickson and Cargill continuously build and break the balance between confinement and exposure — between being trapped in tight, suffocating spaces and the desperate exploration of open, limitless ones, first within the mind and then in nature itself. The wilderness of the Colorado mountains becomes a merciless hell on earth — not of fire, but of blizzards that blur sight and freedom alike, enveloping both the young protagonists and the viewer in confusion, fear, and adrenaline.

Amid the storm are ghosts, evil, and the persistent pull of faith. Emotional involvement is guaranteed, though Black Phone 2 signals a clear shift — in rhythm, tone, and visual language.

Thirteen years after Sinister, Derrickson and Cargill finally pick up the thematic thread left dangling there, creating an unexpected crossover between that film and what now feels like the beginning of a Black Phone franchise. Once again, they explore the nature of evil that first seduces and then betrays childhood, stripping away innocence and revealing, with cruel clarity, the savagery of humanity. And once more they turn their gaze inward, to the boundaries of the mind — between what is real and what is image, imagination, or something beyond — all rendered even more disquieting by the coarse texture of film grain.

Here, the sinister and the primordial evil — King, King, and more King — gradually take hold, then slip and spin furiously across the ice, amid blood, screams, and snow, performing a true dance of death — or, to borrow King’s own words, a bloody, unforgettable, and terrifying Danza Macabra.

Black Phone 2 becomes a dark, mature, and visionary fable about the power of love and the ability to look at life beyond loss and abandonment. A film that manages, astonishingly, to renew the very myth of King’s conception of evil. One of the finest horror films in recent years.

Sentieri Selvaggi, October 16, 2025

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