Black Phone 2 Writer Says Everyone Is a Christian in the Theater — Why the Sequel Embraces Faith
Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill — the creative pair behind both Black Phone movies as well as Sinister and Sinister 2 — say the sequel leans into Christian themes more openly than the first film. Both men identify as Christians, and they told reporters that ideas about Hell, demons, and what makes a “true Christian” appear as part of the movie’s core. Meanwhile, Black Phone 2 stars Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw as siblings Finn and Gwen, and the film is in theaters now. For context about faith-based pictures at the box office, see Christian movies.
- What they said
- Faith in Black Phone 2
- Why they brought religion into the sequel
- Cast and release details
What they said
C. Robert Cargill made a striking claim about how audiences react to horror. He said: “The minute an audience sits down for a horror movie, everyone in that audience is a Christian.” He continued with a full example of that mindset: “If there’s a demon in the movie, everyone’s immediately like, Yes, reading from the Bible can chase it away. Yes, Hell is a real place. Yes, of course, the devil can impregnate a woman, you can have a child of the devil. That makes total sense. And then they get up and leave it all there in the movie theater.”
Faith in Black Phone 2
According to the filmmakers, Black Phone 2 is not a conventional faith movie, but it does explicitly address Christian beliefs — especially ideas about Hell and spiritual rules. Cargill said, “It doesn’t matter what religion you are when you sit down for horror,” and added, “Christianity is baked into our horror to the point where people understand and acknowledge the rules, so we knew we could just say it out loud.”
Why they brought religion into the sequel
Bringing religion into a mainstream horror sequel can be risky, because faith is personal and could alienate viewers. However, Derrickson and Cargill argued that horror already borrows dramatic weight from spiritual themes, so they felt justified in being more direct this time. Derrickson framed the choice around tone and emotion: “People are not going to see dramas the way they used to, and I think one of the reasons is, those dramas are in horror films now,” he says. “Horror has developed into the genre where the best dramas are being told. […] And because that’s the way we’re moving, I wanted to explore feelings of hope that belong in horror now, in ways they didn’t even 10, 15 years ago.”
He also highlighted the film’s emotional core: the fear and the love at its center. As he put it, “So there’s a lot of beauty around the awfulness and the terror of making a movie about a sadistic child killer back from the dead.”
Cast and release details
The movie centers on siblings Finn and Gwen, played by Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw. Universal Pictures released the film wide, and it is currently playing in theaters. Photo credit appears below.
Photo: Sabrina Lantos / Universal Pictures
