‘Evil Dead II’, ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors’, ‘Dawn of the Dead’, ‘M3GAN 2.0’: It’s etched in horror’s bloody history that not all sequels are created equal. But in the context of the genre’s iconography, the importance of things like sequels and threequels cannot be underestimated. Sometimes they take horror movies to thrilling new heights, but for better or worse, sequels in the series can bring unbridled surrealism that destroys the rulebook with buckets of guts in hand.
“Black Telephone 2” is a rare film that succeeds in both. At its beating heart is a shocking brother-sister story about intergenerational trauma and teenage growing pains. In the climax, Glover, the franchise killer played by Ethan Hawke, gracefully chases down his victims on ice skates and attempts to decapitate them with an axe.
Director Scott Derrickson describes this bloody ballet as a “balancing act” that hinges on a precise alchemy of meeting fan expectations and never backing down from exhaustion.
“You can fall to the left or the right,” Derrickson says. “On the left, sometimes you try to make something too faithful and recreate the experience of the original movie. We’ve all experienced something like a rehash, and that’s a shame. And on the right, if you deviate too much, you risk losing[the audience]because it doesn’t feel like it’s part of the same world. I think we stretched the balance to the right with this production. But I still feel like we were making a movie that was meant to improve and one that wasn’t.” An appreciation for the first movie. ”
In “Black Phone 2,” Derrickson takes the world of “Black Phone” from middle school innocence to serious teenage angst. In the Blumhouse sequel, Finny (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) are understandably shaken by the events of the first film, and their problems manifest in vivid night terrors for Gwen and pot smoking and fist fights for Finny. Gwen is haunted by visions of Glover and her late mother, and convinces Finney to attend a Christian youth camp where her mother once worked. There, the clairvoyant brothers battle Glover from beyond the grave and consider the truth behind their mother’s death.
Ahead of the premiere of Black Phone 2, which hits theaters on October 16th, Derrickson sat down with Variety to talk about the maturation of gore with the lead duo, the horror iconography of his youth, and the possibilities for Black Phone 3.
You directed Doctor Strange and Hellraiser: Inferno, have you learned any lessons from those IP films when building your own worlds?
“Doctor Strange” was not tied to the MCU at all, so it was a great experience. It really was an independent film in its own world. After I made The Black Phone, I had no intention of making a sequel, and it wasn’t until[screenwriter]Joe Hill gave me the idea that I started thinking about it. I started to get fed up with it and eventually came up with the idea that I could wait and make another movie and if these kids were in high school, I could make a high school horror movie as a sequel. That was interesting.
While “The Black Phone” felt isolated, “Black Phone 2” incorporates a lot of horror iconography. Was it a deliberate choice or a subconscious influence?
That was very conscious. What got me excited about waiting until my kids were in high school was that high school horror movies require more violence and scares than middle school supernatural thrillers. That is exactly what a “black phone” is. In terms of influences, I found myself making a film set in 1982. It was the era of all the summer camp slasher movies that followed Friday the 13th. I watched dozens of movies in the ’80s, but my favorite was the idea of setting it at a winter camp in the Rocky Mountains. It wasn’t something I had seen before. There’s something very unique about these places, the danger of the weather, the cinematic power of the landscape, and its enclosed nature. So while I think it belongs to the horror genre of the time, it was very refreshing.
What can you tell us about Black Phone 2 evolving the themes of the first film and moving forward with the relationship between Finny, Gwen, and her reformed father as he reconciles with the truth of his mother’s death?
This goes back to getting them into high school. From a character standpoint, the excitement for me was, who are these kids going to be? After these events, which would have been truly traumatic and frightening, who will Finny and Gwen be four years from now, and how are they processing them? When I thought about it, I liked the idea of Finn being angry and smoking too much pot to mask the fear that his anger couldn’t handle. And Gwen continues to develop this ability that she inherited from her mother in the previous film, but her mother went insane and committed suicide. What does that feel like for her? She’s becoming more feminine and feels like an awkward teenage girl who is going crazy like her mother and people think she’s a witch. All of that seemed very true to the story and to the normal struggles of teenagers.
There are some interesting themes regarding religion and the existence of evil. What’s behind the push and pull between Demián Bichir, the counselor who takes Finny under his wing, and Maev Beatty and Graham Abbey, the God-fearing couple who reject Gwen?
They were rooted in my own experiences. After a traumatic childhood event, I found strength and hope in spiritual community with other teens. Many teenagers are very spiritual and experienced. You don’t see that often in movies. But even I, in good conscience, could not express it without taking into account the nonsense that one would learn in such a place. As you know, fear-based, restrictive, and more moralistic religions are often forced upon teenagers in such environments. It had to be part of the tapestry, but it was easier for me to handle because I had Gwen. Her spirituality is very individual. It is hers and hers alone and is not associated with any religion or particular church or denomination. It was a backdrop that allowed us to legitimately explore Gwen’s spirituality and contrast it with this different brand of Christianity.
How did you decide to incorporate Super 8 footage into the story?
I can’t think of a movie that has more Super 8 elements. We knew we were interested in exploring that in Gwen’s dreams, but during writing, the dreams continued to expand until the decision was made that the attacks would only occur in dreams. The script goes back and forth between dream world and reality, making it very difficult to read. I knew I needed a visual methodology that would allow the audience to easily distinguish between the dream world and reality, and filming only dreams in Super 8 became that tool. One of the biggest accomplishments of this movie is that when you go to a test, no one gets confused anymore, even when you’re going back and forth quickly between two areas. So it was also a simple tool that allowed us to achieve the lofty goal of creating a movie unlike anything we’d seen before. That was important to me.
One comparison that always comes to mind is “Halloween 3,” which saw this new dimension of Glover in a completely new time-space. If there is a “Black Phone 3,” could we see Glover, or perhaps another evil like him, creeping into the lives of other families?
All I can say is that my attitude towards sequels is that unless you’re really trying to make a better movie than the first movie you’re making a sequel to, there’s really no justification for making a sequel. If you’re going to make a third one, it has to be better than the second one, and the second one is better than the first one. Very few movies do that. If you look back at the history of movies, I think Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead trilogy are probably the only two film trilogies that have gotten progressively better, with all three being great films. What’s important to me when considering an idea is that it’s not just a redo and it doesn’t feel like, “Oh, we established this new rule for grabbers, so let’s do it again.” That’s the only thing I couldn’t do.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
