After watching and loving the psychological thriller The Black Phone, I was naturally curious about the second movie when it was released in 2025. On Valentine’s Day 2026, I sat down with my preteen children and prepared to dive into what The Black Phone 2 had to offer. We didn’t make it more than fifteen minutes into the movie before we shut it off and rebuked it in the name of Jesus.

Murder is Not Normal

The graphic violence of the teenage boys being chased through the woods and slaughtered was completely unacceptable. The first murder was of a boy being ripped into with a knife, the screen blurred with blood and the soundtrack wilted and grating to emphasize the depravity. The second death was of a boy being hacked apart by an ax and then his body parts being burned. Right after that, the psychic sister Gwen walked out of her house in a dream state and saw the boy’s dismembered and charred body strewn on her front lawn.

This. Is. Not. Normal.

Murdering children is not normal. Having children actors play out the act of being hunted and murdered by a serial killer is not normal. Watching the murder of children—fictional or not—is not normal. Witnessing a human body be hacked apart and burned beyond recognition is not normal.

In The Black Phone, the abduction and murder of the children was only inferred. The Grabber’s black van would roll onto the scene where a child from Finn’s, the main character, school was and then the scene would cut. The implication of that van showing up—absent of blood, gore, or violence—sufficiently communicated to viewers that that child was the next victim. We later see the missing children manifest in the room with Finn after he’s been abducted, but even their visible wounds were mild in comparison to what was shown in The Black Phone 2.

As an audience, we tend to justify viewing this kind of content by telling ourselves that it’s not real, that they’re just actors, that it’s just makeup. The concerning core aspect of that, though, is that we’re essentially making ourselves apathetic to watching people—children, in this case—being savagely killed. We have to dissociate from reality, unplug our humanity, and convince ourselves that it’s normal to witness this kind of violence and gore in order to enjoy the film. That’s not normal.

Additional Thoughts

While The Black Phone was certainly more of a psychological thriller, The Black Phone 2 was undoubtedly a horror film. When I saw the R rating for “violence,” I should have taken it more seriously, especially for my children’s sakes. In fact, I should have gone to IMDB to see what that specifically meant because they have a detailed list of all the instances of violence in the movie. What I read on that list left me appalled at what more brutality I missed and grateful that I hadn’t witnessed it for myself.

The good Christian versus bad Christian element to the story that I missed was something I stumbled into while doing research for this review. I read a post on a site that stated the creators of the movie had kept a loose Christian theme throughout, but that they wanted to portray experiences they’d had with unbecoming Christians. The report I read stated that two characters Barbara and Kenneth were righteous Christians who judged Gwen for her profanity, which isn’t what true Christians do. I also know that these two self-righteous Christians were brutally attacked in the final scene, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Isn’t determining that they deserve to die brutally for being self-righteous… self-righteous in and of itself?

What I loved so much about the first movie was the supernatural element behind Finn being able to talk to the victims through the Black Phone and God granting Gwen the clairvoyant power to find the Grabber via her dreams. In the second movie, I know that they explored more of a spiritual attack since the Grabber was dead, and that Gwen fought him in her dreams. I think that was an awesome approach to continuing the Grabber’s story into his first kills and to face him as a villain from beyond the grave.

Conclusion

The lifeblood of darkness that pumped through this film was not something I welcomed into my home, and the storytelling wasn’t worth the gruesome nature of the overall production. My twelve-year-old son’s comment as we were watching was, “Let’s turn this off. We haven’t even really made it into the movie and we’ve already had to cover our eyes twice, and there’s tarot cards? What are we doing?”

Immediately, we switched The Black Phone 2 off, prayed to cast out what we’d stumbled into from our minds and memories, and we put The Black Phone on. In comparison, the first film was tastefully crafted, emotionally disruptive without compromising our humanity, and thrilling without the need for gore or brutality. The entertainment value of this film made me rave as much on the second watch as I did on the first, if not more. That’s how you know you’ve got a five-star story.

Murder isn’t normal, and neither is witnessing it. Just because murder occurs in real life doesn’t mean we need to accept it or worship it in film.We need to be vigilant of what we allow into our heads and hearts, of how it changes us, of what we consider acceptable.

I rebuke this film in the name of Jesus, and I pray for moral and spiritual protection over anyone who watches it.