What has been happening with Freddy Krueger and A Nightmare On Elm Street? Your guess is as good as mine. It seems to me that the Craven estate is dragging their feet on ideas or money. There isn’t a shortage of studios or filmmakers who would love to take on one of the most popular and iconic slasher villains out there. Well, there might be someone at the door ready to step into his territory.

The newly released Black Phone 2 trailer shows off a bit of how The Grabber makes his comeback after his untimely demise from Finn in the first film. Ethan Hawke has embued the character with a sinister vibe and now he’s back as a supernatural force trying to get his revenge. Here’s the official synopsis of the new film.

As Finn, now 17, struggles with life after his captivity, the headstrong 15-year-old Gwen begins receiving calls in her dreams from the black phone and seeing disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp known as Alpine Lake. 

Determined to solve the mystery and end the torment for both her and her brother, Gwen persuades Finn to visit the camp during a winter storm. There, she uncovers a shattering intersection between The Grabber and her own family’s history. Together, she and Finn must confront a killer who has grown more powerful in death and more significant to them than either could imagine.

So why should Freddy be quaking in his boots?

Horror Fans Are Desperate For New Icons

There’s a lot to like about The Grabber when it comes to being iconic. He’s got a great performer behind him with Ethan Hawke, he’s got great horror writers writing material with C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson, and it’s a Joe HIll creation. There are other things at play here, he’s got the creepy mask, which changed depending on the scene in the first film, we’ll have to see how the mask changes in the second film. Also, we’re just in a dry environment for horror icons. Outside of Art The Clown, we don’t have anyone rising up to meet the demand for new horror icons. Michael Myers is done, Jason Voorhees is coming back slowly, Chucky is without a project for now, and Freddy Krueger is dormant, seemingly under ice.

That’s why The Grabber can take up some sort of mantle, especially with this new wrinkle of his supernatural ability to get people in their dreams. That’s a classic Freddy Krueger thing, but we’ll have to see when the new movie releases on October 17th for how much different it is than Freddy. He seems to be driven by revenge for Finn killing him, but there’s plenty of backstory to explore with The Grabber and his previous victims.

In a perfect world, we’d have plenty of new horror icons to choose from, but in the world we live in, this nightmarish landscape of drought for horror characters, The Grabber might be the next best character to take up the mantle.

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