‘Black Phone 2’ Director Scott Derrickson Explains the Movie’s Haunting Ending

“The Black Phone” is back, and so is The Grabber.

The sequel to 2021’s “The Black Phone” follows Fiiney (Mason Thames) and his little sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) as they are once again menaced by sadistic serial killer the Grabber (Ethan Hawke). Only this time, The Grabber is messing with them from beyond the grave. (He was – spoiler alert – offed at the end of the first movie.)

But what happens at the end of the movie? And is The Grabber vanquished for good?

We spoke to co-writer/director Scott Derrickson about the ending of “Black Phone” and what could be next. Very heavy spoiler warning. If you haven’t watched yet, don’t read until you have.

What happens in “Black Phone 2?”

The new movie is largely set at a winter Christian camp in Colorado. Both Finney and Gwen seem to be drawn there, teased by a telephone booth, stationed at the edge of a lake. But they get to the camp as a major blizzard blows in, standing them there with the Alpine Lake supervisor (Demián Bichir), his niece and a couple of caretakers. And, you know, the vengeful spirit of The Grabber.

What’s the central mystery?

The central mystery is twofold – one, it involves finding a pair of early victims of The Grabber, back when he was a counselor at the camp and two, it concerns Finney and Gwen’s mother, who potentially had an early run-in with The Grabber.

What do they find out?

Well, that their mother (played warmly by Anna Lore) didn’t commit suicide. She was actually onto The Grabber’s murderous shenanigans and he killed her, staging her death like a hanging. And they did find the kids that The Grabber murdered earlier, trapped in the icy waters of the lake. Once they were freed, that seemed to put The Grabber in his place.

Where did the ending of “Black Phone 2” come from?

“I’m drawing on pretty traditional ghost stories –the idea of the spirits of the murder victims not at rest and the vengeful ghost who is responsible for them. I’m putting all these things together one big soup,” Derrickson said.

“I went that direction specifically because it was a way to bring some more mythology into the storytelling. But it’s not an explanation for The Grabber’s evil. It’s not a psychological explanation for, Oh, here’s why The Grabber was the way he was. Because I think when you’re talking about that level of evil, when you’re talking about a child serial killer and a sadistic child serial killer, you’re talking about the worst kind of evil possible,” he continued. “And I think that to do anything other than recognize deep mystery in that and that it’s horrifying and fascinating because it’s so mysterious, to try to reduce that to psychological backstory is to discredit the nature of evil itself in some ways.”

There was never, for instance, going to be a scene of a young Grabber at home, getting abused by his parents or bullied at school.

“As a real fan of serial killer documentaries and having read a lot of books on serial killers, you get both things. There are serial killers who were really abused as children. And then there’s equally vile, horrific serial killers who had happy childhoods. I don’t think that kind of behavior can always be explained,” Derrickson said.

Will there be another “Black Phone?”

As this franchise has taught us, “death is only a word.” And it’s easy to anticipate future installments with The Grabber, now a full-on Freddy Kruger-style villain, wreaking further havoc.

But Derrickson said that it hasn’t gotten that far – yet.

“I honestly haven’t thought about it. I have not gone down that road in my mind yet. And that’s on purpose. Once you’re in the business of trying to map out sequels and prequels and larger cinematic universes, you’re automatically hamstringing yourself to the story that you’re telling in some ways,” Derrickson said. “I certainly approach this movie as my own completion to the first movie, and whether or not there would be a third one, I’d have to start from square one, with no sense of obligation to do so well.”

“Black Phone 2” is theaters now.