the nightmare continues to ring and brings our nightmares back to life

There is a telephone. It just keeps ringing and ringing. The metallic and repetitive sound awakens some recent memories, terrible moments of an experience that still lies deep, never completely removed and seemingly impossible to overcome. In the echo of a note that has become an icon of a story that has left its mark on its audience at the cinema, Black Phone 2 is born and developedsequel to Black Phone which continues the story, gathering on its shoulders a successful legacy that is certainly difficult to repeat on the big screen.

Some time has passed since the events that fans know well and, right in the middle of growth and adolescence, the subtle reminder of something painful that has not yet found its definitive resolution returns. Available in Italian cinemas from 16 October 2025, directed by Scott Derrickson and written by the director together with C. Robert Cargill, Black Phone 2 retraces the steps of a terror that has its roots in childhood and the naivety of a young age. This time, however, we will have to repeat and at the same time change (if you are a lover of the horror genre and are looking for a film that also talks about psyche and torment, we refer you to our review of The Valley of Smiles).

Hell is frozen over

About four years after the nightmare that made him a true survivor of the deepest terror imaginable, Finn finds himself dealing with the invisible scars left by evil. At thirteen he had managed to escape the hands of his captor, the infamous “Rapace”, putting an end to his reign of fear. But time doesn’t heal everything, and in Black Phone 2 the past comes knocking again – or rather, to ring – from a place where death has failed to break the bond between victim and executioner.

Ethan Hawke once again takes on the role that brought him to contemporary horror imagery, a villain who, in Black Phone 2, goes beyond the boundaries of the body to insinuate himself into the territories of memory and guilt. At his side we find Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw, in the role of Finn and Gwen, brother and sister marked by a trauma that never stops breathing beneath the surface. Now teenagers, the two discover that the echo of the black phone never really went away: his calls cross the dreams, the silences and the snowy fields of a place called Alpine Lake.

There, among disturbing visions and presences that blend with the wind, Gwen follows the trail of an enigma that intertwines their destiny, past and present, with that of the Bird of Prey. The glacial and bitter winter becomes the setting for an initiatory journey in which fear merges with revelationand where family ties take on darker shades than the two brothers could have ever imagined. Black Phone 2 thus becomes a story of legacy – not only of evil, but also of the courage needed to face it.

Deep wounds

Returning to Finn and Gwen’s life means entering the entrance to a house where trauma still lives and breathes deeply. Black Phone 2 introduces horror by going through the broken psyches of its two protagonistsespecially the first, exploring the hidden complications and consequences that an experience like the one Finn experienced firsthand can leave us forever.

Pain therefore remains a fundamental constant of the narrative, here not only a profound element of characterization, but also and above all a key to understanding a narrative context in which things have never really progressed compared to the events of the first film. As Black Phone 2 tells us about “post-traumatic stress disorder” and a denial so complex and deep-rooted that it becomes anger and the illusion of cancellation.

The choice to work in this way on its protagonists, both small and larger, is convincing, finding an underlying credibility that once again makes the human an element to be analyzed in both positive and negative terms. The writing of Black Phone 2, then, is once again interested in the more paranormal side of a story that becomes even more important in these termsfinding interesting points of support that connect it directly with the shadows of the previous feature film.

Past and present are the focus of a sequel that works both in terms of terror and in terms of formal workmanship. It is precisely in the construction of a particular aesthetic of images that Black Phone 2 proves a love not only for the material covered, but also for the historical period in which it is chosen to be set. Some gems, which we won’t spoil, will certainly please the most nostalgic and lovers of the 80s, with references to more contemporary products as well.

With the direction of Scott Derrickson, always in motion, and the screenplay written together with C. Robert Cargill, Black Phone 2 renews a collaboration that is even more convincing. The sequel amplifies the psychological tension and metaphysical component of the original. Although it does not innovate the formula that fans know well, the film manages to retrace its steps while still bringing something interesting to the main story.

So that phone is still ringing. Not to scare, but to remind us that certain sounds never really stop echoing, especially when they come from the past. Black Phone 2 is like this: an unexpected call from a number that we thought we had deleted, but which keeps coming back asking to be listened to. Derrickson does not reinvent horror, but brings it back to its most intimate and disturbing origins – those that creep into the mind and leave no escape even when the lights are on.