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Debuting as the re-activated master of horror machine was continuing to produce film versions, regardless of quality, the first installment felt like a lazy fanboy tribute. Set against a retro suburban environment, young performers, telepathic children and gnarly neighbourhood villain, it was almost imitation and, comparable to the weakest his literary works, it was also inelegantly overstuffed.

Funnily enough the inspiration originated from inside the family home, as it was based on a short story from King’s son Joe Hill, stretched into a film that was a shocking commercial success. It was the narrative about the kidnapper, a sadistic killer of young boys who would enjoy extending their fatal ceremony. While assault was never mentioned, there was something clearly non-heteronormative about the character and the historical touchpoints/moral panics he was obviously meant to represent, emphasized by the actor portraying him with a certain swishy, effeminate flare. But the film was too vague to ever really admit that and even excluding that discomfort, it was excessively convoluted and too focused on its tiring griminess to work as only an undiscerning sleepover nightmare fuel.

The Sequel's Arrival In the Middle of Production Company Challenges

The next chapter comes as previous scary movie successes the studio are in urgent requirement for success. Lately they've encountered difficulties to make any project successful, from Wolf Man to The Woman in the Yard to Drop to the utter financial disappointment of the AI sequel, and so significant pressure rests on whether the sequel can prove whether a short story can become a motion picture that can generate multiple installments. However, there's an issue …

Paranormal Shift

The initial movie finished with our surviving character Finn (Mason Thames) eliminating the villain, supported and coached by the apparitions of earlier casualties. This situation has required writer-director Scott Derrickson and his co-writer C Robert Cargill to take the series and its killer to a new place, turning a flesh and blood villain into a ghostly presence, a path that leads them through Nightmare on Elm Street with an ability to cross back into the physical realm made possible by sleep. But in contrast to the dream killer, the villain is noticeably uncreative and totally without wit. The disguise stays successfully disturbing but the production fails to make him as terrifying as he momentarily appeared in the first, trapped by complicated and frequently unclear regulations.

Alpine Christian Camp Setting

The main character and his frustratingly crude sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) encounter him again while stranded due to weather at an alpine Christian camp for kids, the sequel also nodding regarding the hockey mask killer the camp slasher. The sister is directed there by a vision of her late mother and what could be their dead antagonist's original prey while Finn, still trying to deal with his rage and recently discovered defensive skills, is following so he can protect her. The screenplay is excessively awkward in its contrived scene-setting, awkwardly requiring to maroon the main characters at a place that will also add to backstories for both protagonist and antagonist, supplying particulars we weren't particularly interested in or desire to understand. Additionally seeming like a more deliberate action to guide the production in the direction of the similar religious audiences that turned the Conjuring franchise into massive hits, the director includes a religious element, with morality now more strongly connected with the creator and the afterlife while villainy signifies the demonic and punishment, religion the final defense against a monster like this.

Overloaded Plot

The consequence of these choices is additional over-complicate a story that was formerly almost failing, adding unnecessary complications to what could have been a straightforward horror movie. Regularly I noticed too busy asking questions about the hows and whys of possible and impossible events to feel all that involved. It’s a low-lift effort for Hawke, whose features stay concealed but he maintains authentic charisma that’s generally absent in other areas in the cast. The location is at times remarkably immersive but most of the continuously non-terrifying sequences are flawed by a grainy 8mm texture to distinguish dreaming from waking, an poor directorial selection that appears overly conscious and constructed to mirror the horrifying unpredictability of living through a genuine night terror.

Unpersuasive Series Justification

At just under 2 hours, Black Phone 2, similar to its predecessor, is a excessively extended and hugely unconvincing justification for the establishment of another series. If another installment comes, I recommend not answering.

• The sequel releases in Australia's movie houses on October 16 and in America and Britain on the seventeenth of October