Spoilers ahead for the plot and ending of Black Phone 2 .

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” sounds like a quote made up by someone who wanted a pass for light plagiarism, but there’s still some truth to it. In horror, a genre that’s always building on itself, homage is par for the course. While that sometimes means lazy pastiche and shameless rip-offs, there are canonical classics like Scream and Get Out that expand on and deepen the films they borrow from. In many ways, the best-case scenario for horror is a movie that’s in conversation with those that came before it, attempting something thoroughly original alongside loving tributes to the genre’s past.

Black Phone 2 is not a best-case scenario. The problem is not that it cribs from one of the greatest horror franch

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