Scott Derrickson reveals how The Shining inspired Black Phone 2

Perth Now

2 days ago

Director Scott Derrickson has revealed the setting for 'The Shining' directly inspired his upcoming film 'Black Phone 2'.
The 58-year-old filmmaker is bringing back child adductor The Grabber - played by Ethan Hawke - following the success of his 2022 supernatural horror, which was based on the characters featured in Joe Hill's collection of short stories '20th Century Ghosts'.
The sequel is partly set at a place known as Alpine Lake Youth Camp and that wintery setting in the Rocky Mountains is the same location as The Overlook Hotel that sends Jack Torrance mad in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror classic which is based on Stephen King's book of the same name.
Derrickson also wanted to acknowledge the tradition of school camp horror films - the most popular franchise being 'Friday the 13th' which is set at Camp Crystal Lake summer camp.
In an interview with Collider, Derrickson said: "I really like to use weather as a character if I have an opportunity to do it, so the winter, Rocky Mountain camp environment was also an inspiration for me to say yes to doing the movie. Of course, you've got 'The Shining' that you're drawing on because that was The Overlook Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where they filmed the exterior of that.
"And, of course, you've got the little tradition of camp horror, but it's almost always summer camp. There aren't a lot of winter camp movies. I went to both as a high school kid, and it was always the winter camps that were more powerful and memorable."
Derrickson also revealed that he put many of his own school experiences into 'The Black Phone' and the sequel - which is set four years after the events of the first film.
He added: "It's really drawing on my experience as a high schooler. I poured so much of my childhood and early middle school years into 'The Black Phone'. "In high school, as I got older, I spent more and more time in the Rocky Mountains. I'd ski every weekend, and I spent a lot of time at these winter camps that they have up there. They're really incredible experiences. To be in the violence of that weather, the blizzards and all of that, the beauty of the surrounding mountains, to be in several feet of snow all the time, there's something mesmerizingly powerful about that."
Derrickson admits the passage of time for the story was a major factor in him agreeing to make a sequel as he could explore what the effects of the first film's plot had on Mason Thames' character Finney and Madeleine McGraw's alter ego Gwen.
He said: "As soon as the first movie was a hit, Universal was asking me to make a sequel, hoping I'd make a sequel. I didn't feel obliged to do that, but I certainly wasn't going to do it if I didn't have a reason to do it beyond any kind of cash grab. So I was looking for an idea, and Joe Hill emailed me a pitch for a sequel. Some of it I didn't respond to, but there was an idea within that email that I thought was fantastic that I had never thought of. So, I started to noodle on that idea.
"Then, really, what made me decide to go ahead and commit to making a sequel was that I realised if I went and made another movie first and didn't go straight into a sequel, which I'm sure everybody would have liked, if I waited and made another movie first, then these kids would be in high school.
"That became a very exciting prospect to me to be able to continue with these characters, but in a really different phase of their lives, both as characters and as actors. These kids would really be in high school, and we'd make a high school coming-of-age horror film as opposed to a middle school movie. Once I had that idea, I think that's when I committed to doing it."
'Black Phone 2' will be released in cinemas in October 2025.