‘Black Phone 2’ Dials Into A New Era Of Faith-Based Horror — But Loses Its Signal
(REVIEW) Faith-based horror is having a really good run this year. “Sinners” was a deeply religious film and was both a critical and box office hit. “The Conjuring: Last Rites” has become the second-highest-grossing horror film of all time. And this year’s “Black Phone 2” is already No. 1 at the box office opening weekend and exceeding the opening box office of the original.
Horror films are cheaper to make than superhero films, so these kind of blockbuster box office successes virtually guarantee that horror films are only going to become more dominant in Hollywood going forward.
But this Hollywood faith-based horror is not like earlier generations’ faith-based horror. Movies like “The Exorcist” portrayed religious institutions as largely good and legitimate weapons against evil. But “Black Phone 2” and the modern spiritual horror films make organized religion the problem and individual spirituality the solution.
“Black Phone 2” takes place four years after the events of the first movie. Bad dreams haunt a now 15-year-old Gwen (played by Madeleine McGraw) as she receives calls from the original film’s black phone and sees disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp. Accompanied by her brother, Finney (Mason Thames) — who is still dealing with his own trauma after being kidnapped by and eventually killing The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) in the first film — they head to the camp to solve the mystery. They confront the Grabber — who's grown even more powerful in death.
The original “Black Phone” was an effective horror film largely because of its brilliant acting, screenplay and tone. And where “Black Phone 2” works, it's for the same reasons. The screenplay by Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill does a great job of establishing the trauma that Finney and Gwen have from the previous movie, with layered dialogue that tells us so much without being told explicitly.
Finney — in typical displays of toxic masculinity — doesn’t want to talk about his trauma and shuts out Gwen when she does, while engaging in fistfights with any guy who wants to taunt him about it. Gwen alternatively keeps having nightmares and wants to discuss things with Finney, who rebuffs her.
The performances, shots and editing choices brilliantly sell these moments with additional layers. The way that Finney and Gwen look at each other or don’t look at each other while she attempts to reach out to him, and he alternatively tries to shut her out while still being protective of her. Likewise, the way they are polite with their father while he sheepishly attempts to re-establish bonds with them after having been an abusive father for so many years is palpable. Dream sequences and awake sequences are shot very differently — with dreams having a very grainy “old film” quality that makes the transitions easier to follow while increasing the creepy vibe.
One of the most quietly chilling scenes is where Finney is smoking outside, reliving the things that The Grabber said to him and his responses. The Grabber’s appearance in the scene is casual and unremarkable, both in Finney’s reaction to it and the lack of shot or music change. It shows how ever-present that reality is for Finney without ever telling us that it is.
Unfortunately, when the “horror” parts of “Black Phone 2” start, the film goes off the rails.
The film becomes a series of exposition dumps to justify convoluted plot twists and backstory, interrupted by unearned payoffs and ham-fisted preaching with repetitive camerawork. Gwen discovers in a dream that there’s a mystery going on at a Christian youth camp called “Alpine Lake” (totally not a Christian version of “Friday the 13th’s” Crystal Lake), where their mom used to go.
Once there, they discover a snowstorm has canceled the camp and trapped them, and The Grabber is back from Hell and is back to get his revenge — but also because he has a history at this camp. The work the film has to do to justify all these contrivances leaves room for little else. Gwen will spend long scenes discovering something in a dream and then spend another long scene explaining everything she (and therefore we) have just discovered all over again to everyone else.
Moments of catharsis get repeated multiple times — whether that’s the revelation about their mom, Finney being forced to admit his fear, or Gwen realizing she’s more powerful than The Grabber. These moments become boring as you sit through the same emotional beat again and again. These scenes lack creativity for the most part.
What’s most fascinating about this film is how perfectly it fits the new trends how Hollywood portrays spirituality versus religion. Gwen is the ultimate “spiritual, not religious.” She doesn’t go to church, but she talks to Jesus all the time. She also consults tarot cards (or the equivalent) and Jungian psychology of dreams. And yet, she is the most spiritually and morally enlightened of anyone in the film.
Her dreams are always accurate. She’s the most powerful person in the dream world. And whatever she believes about what the right thing to do is — whether it’s her brother needing to open up or needing to pursue the truth at Alpine Lake Camp — she’s always right. Likewise, Gwen’s mom also had the same gift and was shown to be even more perfect than she appeared in the first film.
Meanwhile, male characters and exemplars of organized religion are shown to be foolish or complicit in evil until they listen to Gwen. Finney’s strategies for dealing with his trauma and protecting Gwen, which center on ignoring the problem, are consistently shown to be toxic and consistently corrected by Gwen. Alpine Lake Camp, a Christian institution, lacks both the spiritual power and moral clarity of Gwen. The camp is revealed to have a brutally grisly history that the institution, and many of those in it, is invested in covering up as much as possible. Meanwhile, the good men who want to bring justice for the victims are powerless to do so until Gwen shows up.
This is a clear picture of the direction that Hollywood horror — and Hollywood in general is going. Hollywood horror has always portrayed the modern world as incapable of standing up to the horrors both spiritual and physical that exist in our world. But Hollywood often portrayed the church — whether that was against vampires, ghosts, or demons — as a powerful force standing against these evils. Now, the trend is to show the church as one of those institutions of modernity that is powerless against, and often causing, evil.
It’s also a return to the idea that pagan spirituality that will save us. This is very clear in this year’s horror films like “Presence,” “Death of a Unicorn,” “Sinners,” “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” “The Front Room” and now “Black Phone 2,” which all portray the church as the problem, or at the very least powerless, and individual spiritual women as the ones with the wisdom and the power to fight evil. And this religion is always more male-coded, and spirituality more female-coded.
It’s not hard to see why Hollywood would move in this direction. Women are now leaving organized religion at higher rates than men — so much so that with Gen Z, the gender balance at church has flipped to be majority male for the first time that most people can remember. The reasons given by women who leave are overwhelmingly that churches and organized religion are not liberal enough and therefore oppressing the marginalized — a narrative that Hollywood would sympathize with because Hollywood tends to be left-leaning. This narrative was given vivid voice in a recent high-profile memoir “Awake” from well-known former Christian author Jen Whitaker about her deconversion from Christianity.
Women are much more likely to trust their intuition to lead them to spiritual truths than men, and therefore, more likely to be spiritual when they stop being religious. (Whereas men just become atheists). Creatives — such as those who populate Hollywood — are also more likely to trust their intuition, such that Christian creatives like Makoto Fujimura even argue that listening to your intuition is how you hear from the Holy Spirit.
The problem is that the “spirituality over organized religion” thesis doesn’t hold up under scrutiny on multiple fronts. As religion sociologist Ryan Burge points out, most of the benefits people get from faith come from the “religion” part of faith, not the “spiritual” part. People who are “spiritual but not religious” are also generally less spiritual than religious people. Religious attendance is also a better predictor of mental health, financial generosity (in many ways because of opportunity to give in chiurches) and decreasing toxic masculinity than spirituality.
Intuition-based spirituality outside of organized religion also isn’t more likely to be accurate than religion in directing our beliefs. Studies of people using astrology or “manifesting” were shown to be no more accurate in their predictions than random chance. In real life, Finney and his dad would be right to regard Gwen’s dreams as “just dreams.” And their mother’s fate as originally conceived would be far more likely.
The only way that one can conclude that individual spirituality is superior to organized religion is if you assume left-wing politics are always (or at least usually) right. It’s true that religious individuals are more likely to be — and become — right-wing. But regardless of politics, what is broadly promised from “spirituality” outside of organized religion appears to be largely false.
“Black Phone 2” is good when it’s going for vibe and style. The first half, where it shows characters dealing with trauma without judging them, is Derrickson at his best. But a disappointing second half that focuses more on preaching than entertainment undermines any goodwill the film built up. And its harmful spiritual messages mean that this is a phone call there’s very little reason to take.
“Black Phone 2” is currently in theaters.
Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at josephholmesstudios.com