Black Phone 2 (2025) review

Four years after Finney (Mason Thames) dispatched a serial killer known as "The Grabber" (Ethan Hawke), he's still unnerved by the whole encounter (and taken up the nasty habit of smoking) while his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) keeps having nightmares ... and then the two of them decide to become counsellors-in-training at the Christian-themed Alpine Lake Camp (run by Demián Bichir) that their late mother went to decades ago and where three children supposedly disappeared.  If anyone thought the original was hokey (with its "spooky" ringing telephones) this sequel is even more slapdash: the Grabber has apparently turned into some kind of Freddy Krueger-type figure who inhabits dreams (and, for the finale, he skates around with an axe and is "invisible") and then Gwen develops telepathic powers like Stephen King's Carrie (which fits, since the characters were created by his son Joe).  The only 'interesting' part of this is Derrickson using Super-8 to try and emulate a 70's grindhouse movie, but it would have worked better in a more ominous production.