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Debuting as the resurrected Stephen King machine was still churning out adaptations, regardless of quality, the original film felt like a lazy fanboy tribute. Featuring a retro suburban environment, high school cast, gifted youths and gnarly neighbourhood villain, it was close to pastiche and, like the very worst of King’s stories, it was also inelegantly overstuffed.

Interestingly the source was found inside the family home, as it was based on a short story from King’s son Joe Hill, expanded into a film that was a unexpected blockbuster. It was the story of the Grabber, a brutal murderer of adolescents who would enjoy extending their fatal ceremony. While assault was never mentioned, there was something inescapably queer-coded about the villain and the historical touchpoints/moral panics he was obviously meant to represent, reinforced by the actor portraying him with a certain swishy, effeminate flare. But the film was too ambiguous to ever fully embrace this aspect and even excluding that discomfort, it was overly complicated and too focused on its exhaustingly grubby nastiness to work as anything more than an undiscerning sleepover nightmare fuel.

Follow-up Film's Debut Amidst Filmmaking Difficulties

Its sequel arrives as former horror hit-makers Blumhouse are in desperate need of a win. Recently they've faced challenges to make any film profitable, from Wolf Man to the suspense story to Drop to the total box office disaster of the robotic follow-up, and so significant pressure rests on whether Black Phone 2 can prove whether a brief narrative can become a film that can generate multiple installments. But there's a complication …

Paranormal Shift

The initial movie finished with our Final Boy Finn (the young actor) killing the Grabber, assisted and trained by the apparitions of earlier casualties. It’s forced filmmaker Derrickson and his collaborator C Robert Cargill to move the franchise and its villain in a different direction, turning a flesh and blood villain into a ghostly presence, a path that leads them via Elm Street with a power to travel into the real world enabled through nightmares. But in contrast to the dream killer, the villain is clearly unimaginative and completely lacking comedy. The disguise stays successfully disturbing but the production fails to make him as terrifying as he briefly was in the initial film, limited by complicated and frequently unclear regulations.

Snowy Religious Environment

The protagonist and his annoyingly foul-mouthed sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) encounter him again while stranded due to weather at a mountain religious retreat for kids, the sequel also nodding toward Freddy’s one-time nemesis the Friday the 13th antagonist. The female lead is led there by a vision of her late mother and what could be their deceased villain's initial casualties while Finn, still trying to deal with his rage and recently discovered defensive skills, is pursuing to safeguard her. The script is too ungainly in its forced establishment, awkwardly requiring to leave the brother and sister trapped at a place that will also add to backstories for both hero and villain, filling in details we didn't actually require or want to know about. In what also feels like a more strategic decision to push the movie towards the comparable faith-based viewers that turned the Conjuring franchise into major blockbusters, Derrickson adds a faith-based component, with good now more closely associated with the divine and paradise while villainy signifies the demonic and punishment, faith the ultimate weapon against this type of antagonist.

Overcomplicated Story

The result of these decisions is continued over-burden a franchise that was previously nearly collapsing, including superfluous difficulties to what should be a simple Friday night engine. Frequently I discovered too busy asking questions about the methods and reasons of feasible and unfeasible occurrences to become truly immersed. It's minimal work for Hawke, whose visage remains hidden but he does have genuine presence that’s generally absent in other areas in the acting team. The location is at times impressively atmospheric but the bulk of the persistently unfrightening scenes are marred by a grainy 8mm texture to separate sleep states from consciousness, an unsuccessful artistic decision that appears overly conscious and designed to reflect the terrifying uncertainty of being in an actual nightmare.

Unconvincing Franchise Argument

Running nearly 120 minutes, the follow-up, similar to its predecessor, is a unnecessarily lengthy and highly implausible justification for the establishment of another series. When it calls again, I advise letting it go to voicemail.

• Black Phone 2 is out in Australia's movie houses on 16 October and in the US and UK on 17 October