The Black Phone 2 Trailer Brings Back Ethan Hawke (With A Classic Horror Twist)

"The Black Phone" was a phenomenal surprise. Director Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill have collaborated on some killer projects in the past, including their breakout hit "Sinister," and "The Black Phone" is another win for them. The big screen take on Joe Hill's story of the same name is the best adaptation of Hill's work yet — yes, much better than Netflix's "Locke & Key" show. It is also, as noted in /Film's review, a film that took "a neat little horror concept from an actually short short story and was able to expand upon it in ways that both make sense and don't feel like filler."

Derrickson and Cargill's movie follows Finney (Mason Thames), a young teenager who is abducted by a serial child killer known as The Grabber (who's played by Ethan Hawke in a pretty sick mask). While in captivity, Finney finds a mysterious black rotary phone that allows him to communicate with the ghosts of other kids murdered by The Grabber.

One of the things that made "The Black Phone" so unique was that it worked just as well as a crowd-pleasing, coming-of-age film as it did a horror movie. There is also an air of mystery surrounding Hawke's character, The Grabber, as the movie doesn't try to understand or over-explain him. As Hawke told our own Jacob Hall upon the film's release, "We only see The Grabber the way this 14-year-old kid sees him. I felt that there was more power in the mystery of him. I loved that the screenplay didn't over-explain it. To be honest, I didn't really want to become Jeffrey Dahmer for this or any film."

As such, when it was announced that Hawke would return for Derrickson and Cargill's sequel, "Black Phone 2," the concern was that the film would be tempted to explain too much about the serial killer and his motives. There was also the question of how, exactly, Hawke would come back, given that his character is very much dead by the end of the first movie.

Well, the first trailer for "Black Phone 2" is finally here, and we now have confirmation that The Grabber is not only back but that he's also essentially transformed into another icon of horror cinema — Freddy Krueger.

"Did you think our story was over?" The Grabber asks Finney in the trailer. When Finney confronts his would-be killer and says he's supposed to be dead, Hawke's serial killer simply replies, "You, of all people, know that dead is just a word."

Well, this is one way to continue this story. It seems as if The Grabber is now the one haunting the titular black phone, and based on the film's trailer, it appears that anyone who picks up the phone is essentially inviting this child murderer into their dreams.

That's right: dreams. Taking a page out of Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street," The Grabber is now a primetime-ready nightmare demon that terrorizes children in their sleep. We see shots of The Grabber attacking a kid in the snow, then cut to that same kid in bed clearly having a dream and moving around in a way that reflect their movements in the (dream) snow. Then there's a shot at the end of the trailer where we see The Grabber taking off part of his mask, only to reveal a damaged face underneath just like that of Freddy Krueger.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" remains a horror classic (and the movie's stars know why), yet it's been 15 years since we last saw Freddy Krueger on screen. If nothing else, this is the closest we've gotten to a revival of the beloved franchise since 2010, and not at all a bad source of inspiration for a sequel to a surprise hit.

"Black Phone 2" opens in theaters on October 17, 2025.