The phone is ringing again, and horror fans everywhere are about to pick up. ‘The Black Phone 2′ is the chilling sequel to one of 2022’s best movies, with Ethan Hawke’s masked menace, The Grabber, clawing his way back from the grave for another round of supernatural terror.
The new trailer released this week teases Hawke’s villain returning from beyond, his voice rasping, “Did you think our story was over? You of all people know that dead is just a word. Vengeance… is… mine.” This time, he’s not just lurking in basements, he’s haunting dreams, Freddy Krueger-style, and his thirst for vengeance is colder than the winter setting.
Known for his work on Doctor Strange and Sinister, director Scott Derrickson is back in the saddle, promising a sequel that’s “more violent, scarier & more graphic” than the original.
We caught up with him to learn more about this highly anticipated film…
What made you decide to go back to this world?
The studio asked me to make a sequel. As soon as the first movie was a hit, they wanted a sequel right away. I didn’t feel obligated to do it. I was only going to make a sequel if there was a reason to make the sequel. I got an email from Joe Hill (writer of the short story on which the first movie was based) a month or two after the first movie came out, and he had an idea, some of which I didn’t like, but there was one part of his idea that was incredible, and I had never thought of it. I took that idea, and I started thinking about it, and then what occurred to me, along with the concept that he had, was what if I went and made another movie first and didn’t do what the studio wanted, which was to make a sequel right away. If I went and made another movie first, these kids would all be in high school by the time I finished. When I finished [The Gorge] and was ready to make Black Phone 2, Mason was 17, and Maddie was 15, so I wrote a high school coming-of-age horror film, as opposed to the middle school coming-of-age horror film that the first film was.
The trailer suggests a darker tone compared to the first film. Now that the kids are older, does it allow for a darker, bloodier, and gorier approach.
It’s definitely a darker tone. It’s definitely bloodier and more violent. And yeah, that’s because the kids are in high school. Making a middle school coming-of-age horror film is very different from a high school coming-of-age horror film. In a high school horror film, there’s an expectation for more intensity, more darkness, more blood, and more violence. And this movie certainly has all of that.
You mentioned that Joe Hill was involved early on. Did Joe have any involvement after the initial seed ideas?
No, it was just the seed idea, but I did send him the script because Joe’s a good friend, and both films are built on the shoulders of his great short story. I’ve kept him involved in terms of reading material, and I’ll show him a cut of the movie soon because I love Joe and really value and respect his opinion.
You were fortunate to work with a fantastic group of kids in the first film, and Mason, in particular, is an exceptional young actor. His new film, How to Train Your Dragon, was shot here in Ireland and is set to be released soon. Did you recognise the star potential he had when you first met him?
We looked long and hard to find the character of Finn. We found Madeline right away from an audition tape. As soon as I saw the tape, I was like, that’s Gwen. In fact, I moved the production of the first movie just to make sure that I got her because she was still shooting her Disney show, that’s how sure I was that she was right. For Finn, we couldn’t find anybody. The tape that I got from Mason came very late, and I thought it was really good. It wasn’t until I started doing callback auditions with him that I recognised this is a kid with some pretty extreme raw talent. He’s so good, and after How to Train Your Dragon and Black Phone 2, he’s going to be a big star. It couldn’t happen to a better kid. He’s really got his head on straight, and he is not being seduced by the trappings of celebrity. He just wants to be a good actor, and he’s a really good kid.
Kids, particularly teenage boys, can grow pretty tall and become unrecognisable quite quickly. Were you worried that by leaving the sequel for a few years, the kids might have changed too much?
No, because I knew what age they would be and that they would be in high school [for real]. When I shot the film, they were high school kids, and it was Mason and Madeline McGraw, and also Miguel Mora, who played Robin, who’s got a more significant role in this movie. I wasn’t concerned at all about how they would change because however they changed, that’s how their characters would change. They changed wonderfully. They look great—their performances are so good. I mean, these kids are such good actors.
Was it easy to convince Ethan Hawke to come back and reprise his role?
Before I went away and shot The Gorge, I talked to Ethan. I said, ‘Look, I’m not going to write a script for Black Phone 2 unless you agree to do it.’ Before getting a script, he told me he trusted me and that he would agree to do it. So, I wrote the script, knowing that he would do it. When I sent him the script, he texted me saying, “I’m so scared to read this. I’ve never committed to a sequel before”. I said, “What are you talking about? You did the Before Sunrise trilogy, and that’s two sequels.” And he said, “That doesn’t count. I wrote those”. I said, “Okay, okay, fair enough. Well, just read it and let me know”. He read the script, and he called me afterwards. He was elated; he thought the script was wonderful, and he was super excited to do it. I love Ethan. He’s my favourite actor to work with. He’s so talented, and I’m very happy to have brought him into the world of playing villains.
The new movie leans hard into its winter setting, was it a harder film to shoot, especially in those conditions?
For sure, it made it harder; it made it more expensive. We shot a couple of hours north of Toronto at a campground where it was really covered in snow. During the night shoots, sometimes it was down to zero degrees Fahrenheit, but it was also really fun. You could make a movie like that and use fake snow, but it always looks and feels like fake snow. The vast majority of the snow in this movie is real, even when it’s snowing outside; most of the time, it’s real snow. I think that that texture is very cinematic. I like the presence of weather in movies. I think that weather should be a character in a film, if at all possible, and it certainly is a character in this.
The trailer gives us a really good taste of what the film is going to be like. What can audiences expect from the film?
Well, they can expect the return of characters they care about, including Finn and Gwen, as well as the family dynamic, including Terrence, played by Jeremy Davies. And, of course, the Grabber, who everybody wants to come back and see. But you can also expect an escalation of violence and, as we said before, darkness of tone and scarier set pieces than what we had in that first film.
One thing I love about the first film is the bond between Finn and Gwen. Unlike typical onscreen siblings who often fight or experience rivalry, these two are so close that their relationship feels genuine. This closeness makes the difficult situations they face even more impactful. Will we see more of this lovely bond?
You will see a lot more of that lovely bond. I think that one of the surprising things for me about the first movie was how much people loved that relationship and cared about their bond with each other. It does evolve and carry into this next film in a pretty powerful way.
Interview by Cara O’Doherty