Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) is less affected but suddenly receives a dream where she speaks to their mother in the past while she was at Camp Alpine Lake, a Christian youth resort in the mountains.
Convinced there are souls trapped there in some way related to The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), perhaps some earlier victims she resolves to sign up as a trainee youth leader there. Reluctantly Finn tags along.
No good will come of this.
CW: violence, suicide, lots of woo
This sequel from much the same original team is weird.
The first had a degree of plausible deniability about the supernatural elements as seen by bystanders, did Finn really talk to the dead, did Gwen really dream accurately about the Grabber's activities? Black Phone 2 has full on stuff and people flying around the room spectral manifestation going on.
Any ambiguity in bystander involvement also disappears with the people at the camp coming together as a group in a fight against The Grabber to find and free the souls of his first victims. This is unusual in horror/supernatural stories that aren't just team-up action.
Gwen becomes a kind of Dream Warrior fighting the Grabber in lucid dream that also reflects into the world everyone else sees. That the otherwise immaterial Grabber comes at night and attacks is something all the characters quickly accept as a thing that just happens. Although a Christian couple initially have it down as symptoms of demonic possession.
This seemed initially irritating but once I'd accepted it was now full on fantasy action I quite enjoyed it, it's just not a patch on the first and a bit weird 6/10. I watched the first Black Phone immediately beforehand and if anything that has gone up in my estimation with a rewatch, maybe that would be the case with this too.