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Coming as the re-activated master of horror machine was continuing to produce screen translations, regardless of quality, The Black Phone felt like a sloppy admiration piece. Set against a 1970s small town setting, high school cast, gifted youths and disturbing local antagonist, it was nearly parody and, like the very worst of his literary works, it was also awkwardly crowded.

Funnily enough the inspiration originated from from the author's own lineage, as it was inspired by a compact narrative from the author's offspring, expanded into a film that was a shocking commercial success. It was the tale of the antagonist, a sadistic killer of children who would revel in elongating the process of killing. While molestation was avoided in discussion, there was something unmistakably LGBTQ-suggestive about the character and the period references/societal fears he was intended to symbolize, strengthened by Ethan Hawke playing him with a noticeably camp style. But the film was too opaque to ever really admit that and even excluding that discomfort, it was excessively convoluted and too high on its wearisome vileness to work as anything beyond an unthinking horror entertainment.

Follow-up Film's Debut In the Middle of Filmmaking Difficulties

The next chapter comes as once-dominant genre specialists the studio are in desperate need of a win. Lately they've encountered difficulties to make any film profitable, from the monster movie to the suspense story 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 compact tale can become a motion picture that can spawn a franchise. But there's a complication …

Supernatural Transformation

The first film ended with our Final Boy Finn (Mason Thames) killing the Grabber, helped and guided by the apparitions of earlier casualties. This situation has required director Scott Derrickson and his co-writer C Robert Cargill to take the series and its antagonist toward fresh territory, turning a flesh and blood villain into a supernatural one, a route that takes them by way of Freddy's domain with a capability to return into reality enabled through nightmares. But different from the striped sweater villain, the Grabber is clearly unimaginative and completely lacking comedy. The disguise stays successfully disturbing but the production fails to make him as scary as he briefly was in the original, constrained by convoluted and often confusing rules.

Alpine Christian Camp Setting

The protagonist and his annoyingly foul-mouthed sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) encounter him again while trapped by snow at a mountain religious retreat for kids, the follow-up also referencing in the direction of Jason Voorhees Jason Voorhees. The female lead is led there by a vision of her late mother and what might be their late tormenter’s first victims while the protagonist, continuing to process his anger and newfound ability to fight back, is following so he can protect her. The screenplay is excessively awkward in its forced establishment, awkwardly requiring to leave the brother and sister trapped at a setting that will further contribute to backstories for both main character and enemy, filling in details we didn't actually require or want to know about. Additionally seeming like a more deliberate action to edge the film toward the comparable faith-based viewers that transformed the Conjuring movies into massive hits, the filmmaker incorporates a spiritual aspect, with good now more closely associated with God and heaven while villainy signifies the demonic and punishment, religion the final defense against this type of antagonist.

Over-stacked Narrative

The consequence of these choices is further over-stack a series that was already almost failing, incorporating needless complexities to what ought to be a straightforward horror movie. I often found myself excessively engaged in questioning about the methods and reasons of possible and impossible events to feel all that involved. It's an undemanding role for the performer, whose visage remains hidden but he possesses real screen magnetism that’s generally absent in other areas in the cast. The setting is at times impressively atmospheric but most of the consistently un-scary set-pieces are flawed by a grainy 8mm texture to distinguish dreaming from waking, an ineffective stylistic choice that seems excessively meta and constructed to mirror the terrifying uncertainty of experiencing a real bad dream.

Unconvincing Franchise Argument

Running nearly 120 minutes, the follow-up, comparable to earlier failures, is a needlessly long and extremely unpersuasive argument for the birth of a new franchise. When it calls again, I advise letting it go to voicemail.

• The sequel is out in Australian cinemas on 16 October and in America and Britain on October 17