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Arriving as the revived bestselling author machine was still churning out screen translations, quality be damned, The Black Phone felt like a sloppy admiration piece. Set against a small town 70s backdrop, high school cast, telepathic children and twisted community predator, it was almost imitation and, similar to the poorest his literary works, it was also awkwardly crowded.

Funnily enough the call came from inside the family home, as it was based on a short story from the author's offspring, expanded into a film that was a unexpected blockbuster. It was the story of the Grabber, a sadistic killer of young boys who would enjoy extending the ritual of their deaths. While molestation was not referenced, there was something clearly non-heteronormative about the character and the historical touchpoints/moral panics he was obviously meant to represent, strengthened by the actor playing him with a distinctly flamboyant manner. But the film was too vague to ever properly acknowledge this and even aside from that tension, it was excessively convoluted and too high on its exhaustingly grubby nastiness to work as only an mindless scary movie material.

The Sequel's Arrival In the Middle of Studio Struggles

Its sequel arrives as former horror hit-makers the production company are in urgent requirement for success. This year they’ve struggled to make anything work, from their werewolf film to The Woman in the Yard to their action film to the complete commercial failure of M3gan 2.0, and so significant pressure rests on whether the sequel can prove whether a compact tale can become a film that can generate multiple installments. However, there's an issue …

Supernatural Transformation

The initial movie finished with our surviving character Finn (the performer) killing the Grabber, supported and coached by the apparitions of earlier casualties. It’s forced director Scott Derrickson and his writing partner Cargill to move the franchise and its killer to a new place, converting a physical threat into a supernatural one, a direction that guides them by way of Freddy's domain with a power to travel into the physical realm facilitated by dreams. But different from the striped sweater villain, the villain is markedly uninventive and entirely devoid of humour. The facial covering continues to be appropriately unsettling but the film struggles to make him as frightening as he momentarily appeared in the initial film, trapped by convoluted and often confusing rules.

Mountain Retreat Location

Finn and his annoyingly foul-mouthed sister Gwen (the actress) confront him anew while trapped by snow at an alpine Christian camp for kids, the follow-up also referencing in the direction of Jason Voorhees the Friday the 13th antagonist. The female lead is led there by an apparition of her deceased parent and potentially their late tormenter’s first victims while Finn, still trying to deal with his rage and recently discovered defensive skills, is following so he can protect her. The script is overly clumsy in its artificial setup, clumsily needing to leave the brother and sister trapped at a setting that will further contribute to background information for main character and enemy, supplying particulars we weren't particularly interested in or care to learn about. In what also feels like a more strategic decision to edge the film toward the similar religious audiences that turned the Conjuring franchise into massive hits, the filmmaker incorporates a religious element, with good now more closely associated with the divine and paradise while bad represents the demonic and punishment, faith the ultimate weapon against a monster like this.

Over-stacked Narrative

The result of these decisions is additional over-complicate a series that was already close to toppling over, adding unnecessary complications to what could have been a straightforward horror movie. Frequently I discovered too busy asking questions about the processes and motivations of what could or couldn’t happen to become truly immersed. It’s a low-lift effort for the actor, whose features stay concealed but he possesses real screen magnetism that’s typically lacking in other aspects in the acting team. The environment is at times impressively atmospheric but the bulk of the consistently un-scary set-pieces are damaged by a grainy 8mm texture to differentiate asleep and awake, an poor directorial selection that feels too self-aware and constructed to mirror the terrifying uncertainty of living through a genuine night terror.

Weak Continuation Rationale

Running nearly 120 minutes, the sequel, like M3gan 2.0 before it, is a excessively extended and hugely unconvincing argument for the birth of a new franchise. If another installment comes, I suggest ignoring it.

• The sequel releases in Australia's movie houses on October 16 and in the US and UK on October 17