The first look at Black Phone 2 finally explains how Ethan Hawke’s The Grabber will return – and it sounds chillingly familiar.
Horror fans have been scratching their heads as to how the character would come back in the sequel, given his grisly end at the hands of Mason Thames’ protagonist Finney Shaw in the original, ever since Hawke’s involvement was confirmed back in November 2023. Well, now, we have our answer: he’s a Freddy Krueger-type who bells up children and terrorizes them from beyond the grave with dreams of their own deaths.
Released in 2021, The Black Phone was inspired by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill’s short story of the same name. It centers on Finney, a 13-year-old boy who gets abducted by a sadistic killer and locked inside a soundproof basement. At first, the youngster’s chances of escaping seem cripplingly slim. But when the disconnected phone on the wall starts ringing, and he learns that The Grabber’s murdered victims are on the line trying to help him, he realizes all hope is not lost.
Per Discussing Film, the follow-up’s trailer, which was shown behind closed doors at CinemaCon 2025, reveals that The Grabber’s spirit has managed to establish a haunting supernatural connection to Finney’s little sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw). Most of the footage looks to take place at a lakeside winter camp, as Hawke’s baddie chases kids in the snow and ice skates menacingly towards the camera.
“You of all people know that dead is just a word,” Hawke’s antagonist says to Finney during one scene. “Vengeance is mine.”
“Without a doubt, it looks even more terrifying than the first movie given its stronger supernatural elements,” writes the publication. It certainly sounds bleaker, and that takes some doing considering how the first film revolves around a masked man who murdered several children. Finney was the one that got away and The Black Phone never lets you forget it, as it makes the not-so-lucky littluns an essential part of the story. What’s striking about Black Phone 2, though, is that it sounds like The Grabber has co-opted the titular device to turn it into something to get at kids, rather than save them as before.
Written by Doctor Strange duo C. Robert Gargill and Scott Derrickson, and directed by Derrickson, Black Phone 2 releases on October 17. For more, check out our list of the best horror movies of all time, or our guide to some of the other upcoming horror movies heading our way.