MOVIE NEWS – Four years ago, the horror film Black Phone was a huge critical and public success, in which a serial killer known as the Raider kidnaps children until he finds his true self in one of his chosen victims. At the end of the film, Finney kills the Raider. When the studio announced that a sequel was in the works, in which the Raider returns, fans speculated that the ghost of the deceased horror would torment the characters, meaning that the creators would steer the story even more into supernatural territory. The first trailer revealed that this is indeed the case: the Raider is traveling from beyond the grave into our world.

Suppose a horror beyond the grave threatens children. In that case, most middle-aged people can recall one of the most shocking experiences of their adolescence, A Nightmare on Elm Street and its numerous sequels, where one of the most memorable figures in horror history, the blade-clawed Freddy Kruger (Robert Englund), relentlessly pursued young people. Freddy, who worked as a heater, was burned in a boiler by the parents of his victims, and he returns from the afterlife in the dreams of adolescents with resentment. In Black Phone, Finney strangles the Raider with a telephone cord, who also reappears as an afterlife avenger. The parallels are obvious, and that’s not a bad thing at all, explains Timothy Blake Donohoo, a critic for CBR.

“Every generation of moviegoers deserves to have their own Freddy Kruger, and just as the blade-wielding horror pioneered the role in the 1980s, now it’s The Raiders’ turn. It has all the ingredients: a creative team that can make a franchise out of the material, a suitably exciting horror, and, last but not least, a talented actor, Ethan Hawke, who can literally bring the dead to life.”

According to Donohoo, Black Phone 2 will only be successful if the change in concept can preserve the originality of the first part and the creators don’t run too far down the chosen paranormal path.

(Black Phone 2 – domestic release: October 16, 2025)