Talking about it, Derickson told us exclusively, “I am less interested in drawing from other people’s work than in expanding on what elements from my own work seem unique to me. In this case, it was the use of Super 8 footage in very specific ways, drawing on my own memories at Colorado high school winter camps in the early ’80s and channelling some of the bigger feelings I had when I was a teenager at that time.”

The Black Phone is based on a short story by Joe Hill. It follows Finney(Mason Thames), who is abducted by a serial killer, Grabber (Ethan Hawke). However, when Finney finds a mystical black phone in captivity, he tries to use it to plot his escape by communicating with the ghosts of people Grabber had killed. The film ends with Grabber’s death and Finney’s rescue, and the sequel takes off four years after the events of the original film. 

It also stars Madeleine McGraw, Demian Bichir, Jeremy Davies and Arianna Rivas, among others. Black Phone 2 will be released theatrically on Halloween, on October 31.