Universal’s The Black Phone 2, set for release on October 17, 2025, brings audiences back into one of the most chilling modern horror stories, where trauma lingers, nightmares fester, and the dead never stop calling. The sequel picks up four years after the events of the first film, in which Finn, then a 13-year-old boy, survived abduction by the sadistic Grabber and ended his tormentor’s life. Now 17, Finn struggles to live with the scars of his past. But evil has a way of seeping through cracks, and the phone that once carried the voices of the dead is ringing again.
Ethan Hawke returns to perhaps the most sinister role of his career, reprising The Grabber with even more menace, this time from beyond the grave. While Finn desperately tries to move forward, it’s his younger sister Gwen, played by Madeleine McGraw, who becomes the conduit for horror.
Through her dreams, she begins receiving calls from the black phone, hearing voices of three boys stalked at a remote winter camp called Alpine Lake. As visions grow stronger and more disturbing, Gwen realizes the nightmare isn’t over, and that their family may be entangled in ways they never imagined.
The sibling dynamic at the center of the story gives the film its emotional heartbeat. Finn’s lingering trauma collides with Gwen’s determination, creating a haunting narrative about survival, resilience, and confronting evil that refuses to die.
The film introduces new layers of mystery as Gwen and Finn venture to Alpine Lake during a brutal storm, uncovering an intersection between The Grabber’s legacy and their own family history. What they find forces them to face not just a killer more powerful in death than he ever was alive, but also the darkest truths of their lineage.
Directed once again by Scott Derrickson, with Jason Blum and Derrickson producing alongside C. Robert Cargill, The Black Phone 2 is positioned to deepen the mythology while delivering the kind of nerve-shredding terror that made the original a hit.
With Demián Bichir, Miguel Mora, Jeremy Davies, and Arianna Rivas rounding out the cast, the sequel promises to be both a continuation and an escalation, a horror story about how the past, once buried, never truly stays silent.
