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Arriving as the re-activated master of horror machine was still churning out screen translations, quality be damned, The Black Phone felt like a uninspired homage. Set against a small town 70s backdrop, teenage actors, psychic kids and disturbing local antagonist, it was nearly parody and, like the very worst of the author's tales, it was also awkwardly crowded.

Curiously the call came from from the author's own lineage, as it was based on a short story from King’s son Joe Hill, stretched into a film that was a unexpected blockbuster. It was the tale of the antagonist, a sadistic killer of young boys who would revel in elongating the ritual of their deaths. While sexual abuse was not referenced, there was something clearly non-heteronormative about the antagonist and the period references/societal fears he was obviously meant to represent, strengthened by the performer portraying him with a distinctly flamboyant manner. But the film was too vague to ever really admit that and even aside from that tension, it was too busily plotted and too focused on its tiring griminess to work as only an mindless scary movie material.

Second Installment's Release In the Middle of Production Company Challenges

The follow-up debuts as once-dominant genre specialists the studio are in desperate need of a win. Lately they've encountered difficulties to make anything work, from their werewolf film to The Woman in the Yard to their action film to the utter financial disappointment of the AI sequel, and so a great deal rides on whether Black Phone 2 can prove whether a short story can become a motion picture that can generate multiple installments. But there's a complication …

Paranormal Shift

The original concluded with our protagonist Finn (Mason Thames) killing the Grabber, helped and guided by the apparitions of earlier casualties. This situation has required filmmaker Derrickson and his collaborator C Robert Cargill to take the series and its killer to a new place, transforming a human antagonist into a ghostly presence, a direction that guides them via Elm Street with a power to travel into the real world made possible by sleep. But in contrast to the dream killer, the villain is clearly unimaginative and completely lacking comedy. The mask remains appropriately unsettling but the movie has difficulty to make him as terrifying as he momentarily appeared in the initial film, trapped by complicated and frequently unclear regulations.

Alpine Christian Camp Setting

Finn and his irritatingly profane sibling Gwen (the performer) encounter him again while trapped by snow at a mountain religious retreat for kids, the follow-up also referencing regarding the hockey mask killer the camp slasher. The sister is directed there by an apparition of her deceased parent and what might be their deceased villain's initial casualties while Finn, still trying to deal with his rage and fresh capacity for resistance, is pursuing to safeguard her. The screenplay is excessively awkward in its forced establishment, awkwardly requiring to maroon the main characters at a location that will additionally provide to backstories for both protagonist and antagonist, supplying particulars we didn't actually require or desire to understand. What also appears to be a more strategic decision to push the movie towards the same church-attending crowds that transformed the Conjuring movies into massive hits, Derrickson adds a faith-based component, with virtue now more directly linked with the creator and the afterlife while bad represents Satan and damnation, belief the supreme tool against this type of antagonist.

Over-stacked Narrative

The consequence of these choices is continued over-burden a franchise that was previously close to toppling over, including superfluous difficulties to what ought to be a straightforward horror movie. I often found myself too busy asking questions about the processes and motivations of feasible and unfeasible occurrences to become truly immersed. It's minimal work for Hawke, whose visage remains hidden but he possesses authentic charisma that’s typically lacking in other aspects in the cast. The environment is at times impressively atmospheric but the bulk of the persistently unfrightening scenes are marred by a gritty film stock appearance to separate sleep states from consciousness, an ineffective stylistic choice that seems excessively meta and created to imitate the frightening randomness of experiencing a real bad dream.

Weak Continuation Rationale

At just under 2 hours, Black Phone 2, similar to its predecessor, is a unnecessarily lengthy and highly implausible argument for the birth of a new franchise. If another installment comes, I advise letting it go to voicemail.

• Black Phone 2 debuts in Australia's movie houses on 16 October and in the United States and United Kingdom on 17 October