Useless is only a phrase.
That’s the message behind Common and Blumhouse’s trailer for The Black Cellphone 2, unveiled Sunday at CCXP Mexico, a popular culture conference being held in Mexico Metropolis over the weekend.
The film is the sequel to the shock 2022 hit that made $161 million towards an $18 million price range. Based mostly on a brief story by Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King, the film launched audiences to the Grabber, a masked serial killer who abducts youngsters, locking them up in his basement. One such child, nevertheless, finds an unplugged however haunted rotary telephone that connects him to the ghosts of the earlier snatched boys. And in that, a doable method out.
The film ends (spoiler alert!) with the Grabber lifeless, so how on earth is he again? The trailer enticingly reveals builds to a chilling telephone dialog between our hero, performed by a returning Mason Thames, and the Grabber, as soon as once more performed by Ethan Hawke, with the latter telling the teenager, “You of all individuals ought to know that lifeless is only a phrase.” Then the trailer unleashes a barrage of horror photographs.
‘Black Cellphone 2’ poster
Courtesy of Common Photos and Blumhouse
Director and co-writer Scott Derrickson, who acquired on the telephone with The Hollywood Reporter previous to the trailer’s reveal, was tight-lipped relating to the return. In truth, he was just about tight-lipped about a whole lot of issues.
However he did elaborate on the character of ghost tales.
“The primary film was a ghost film however all of the ghosts had been victims, which is typical, a ghost story,” he mentioned. “However on this one, you’ve acquired a ghost that could be a villain.”
With the primary film, Derrickson tapped into his Denver childhood, the place bullies and violence had been frequent. For this one, he drew on his highschool expertise of going to winter camps within the Rocky Mountains. The severity of the climate, the setting and the encircling Rockies contributed to the tone of the brand new film.
However the distinction between center college and highschool ages of the characters is the massive change in tone.
“A center college coming-of-age horror film is a special animal than a highschool coming-of-age horror movie,” says Derrickson. “A there’s a ratcheting up of depth due to that.”
Derrickson wasn’t essentially planning on a sequel to Black Cellphone however mentioned Hill wrote to him a month or two after the film got here out with some concepts. And having it set in the highschool years proved interesting, particularly when he labored out the timing in his head.
“I assumed if I’m going make one other film first and don’t make a sequel now such as you’re imagined to, then by the point I end, these children are all going to be in highschool,” he mentioned. The film he did was the large-budgeted monster Apple TV+ film titled The Gorge with Anya Taylor-Pleasure and Miles Teller. “And I can return to those characters on this completely different stage of their lives.”
And due to that, Black Cellphone 2 is extra of a horror movie than the primary film, which he considers to be a supernatural thriller.
“It’s definitely extra violent, scarier, extra graphic,” he says. “And a part of that’s due to the age of the youngsters.”
See the trailer beneath.