ALERT: SPOILERS AHEAD

Halloween is coming up, and it’s time to talk about one of the best fall activities of all time – watching horror movies. Now, we’ve all seen the classics, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, all the Scream movies and their terrible sequels. But I feel like nobody appreciates the new horror movies that have been coming out. Sure, 95% of them are terrible and follow similar plots, but there’s one particular horror movie that I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about – The Black Phone 2. Yes, it’s a sequel, and sequel movies – especially horror movie sequels – have a reputation of being very bad. But, I’m going to give this one a chance and check it out in theatres. Could this be the first decent horror movie sequel in a long time?

Just in case you haven’t seen the first The Black Phone, here’s a quick summary of the movie: A 13-year old boy named Finney Blake becomes the latest victim of a child kidnapper wearing a mask known only as “The Grabber.”

Kids have been disappearing left and right in Finney’s town, and one day Finney himself  is approached by “The Grabber” who’s driving a mysterious black van, and lures Finney into the van and abducts him.

Finney wakes up in the basement of the Grabber’s house, with nothing but a dirty mattress, a toilet, and a black rotary phone on the wall. The Grabber tells him it doesn’t work, but when he leaves the basement, it rings. Finney picks up the phone and hears the voices of different dead kids that have fallen victim to the Grabber. Though dead, they can still communicate to him through the phone, and they give him tips and clues on how to escape.

The Grabber decides it’s time to kill Finney, but Finney is ready. When the Grabber enters the basement, Finney attacks him using the phone cord and his homemade traps. He eventually kills the Grabber after a brutal fight, and escapes. The film ends with the broken black phone hanging on the wall – a reminder of the spirits of the dead kids who helped Finney survive.

I pulled up to Marcus Theatres to see what the sequel was all about, and in my opinion, it wasn’t too bad, but it could’ve been better. Despite Finney’s escape, the Grabber lives. He haunts Finney and his sister Gwen, who has her own psychic abilities which allow her to be drawn into the Grabber’s evil influence.

The siblings’ investigation leads them to a Christian winter camp called Alpine Lake. There, they discover that the Grabber’s first victims have been buried beneath the frozen lake. In a shocking discovery, they find out their late mother, who was believed to have died by suicide, was actually a victim of the Grabber. She has psychic powers similar to Gwen’s and was murdered when she uncovered the Grabber’s dark secret.

In the climax of the movie, Gwen uses her visions/psychic ability to enter a realm where the Grabber’s spirit attacks her. Finney and their allies locate the hidden bodies in the frozen lake in the “real” world. By retrieving them, they sever the Grabber’s power. The dead boys’ spirits help immobilize or pull down the Grabber’s spirit. Finney physically confronts the Grabber and, with help, defeats him once and for all – his mask smashed, his face revealed, and he sinks beneath the ice.

In the final scene Gwen answers the Black Phone and hears her mother’s voice speaking from beyond the grave. Her mother tells Gwen that her psychic “gift” is not a curse and actually expresses pride.

Like I said earlier, this wasn’t a bad sequel, considering there have been some pretty terrible horror movie sequels. I like how they brought The Grabber back to life, creating a sense of immortality in the villain, which I really like in movies. If I had to pick a favorite part of this movie, it would have to be the final confrontation between Finney and The Grabber. It really captures the conflict between these two characters across these two movies, and it truly shows Finney’s determination to end his nightmare once and for all. Also, the ending to The Black Phone 2 gave potential for a The Black Phone 3, as there was no ending-credit scene. With the immortality aspect of The Grabber, anything could happen.

I would rate this movie a 7/10. Above average, but still not 100% what I was looking for.