I just watched the Black Phone movies with my dad, and he made a comment about a potential third movie that triggered my Writer’s Brain - because I’d love a third movie! Really, I would! Among other things, I felt like there wasn’t nearly enough payoff for how well they set up Finn’s PTSD, and I’d love to explore the Blake siblings’ abilities more (the dead apparently being able to choose which one of them to call, unless the call Gwen got from her mother at the end was an exception? Gwen’s dreams helping her find the dead kids but not Finney? Finn being the only one in TBP2 to ever break through to Gwen while she was dreaming? Color Me Intrigued) but I’m not sure how the writers would pull it off without it just feeling like they were beating a dead horse, seeing as the second movie ended with them killing the Grabber a second time. I don’t know how many times you can kill the same guy before it stops feeling significant - looking at you, Supernatural - but three kinda seems like it’d be at the very least pushing it.
So, I thought about different ways I might’ve set up a third movie while changing as little as possible about the second, and this is one of them! It might be a little all over the place, but hear me out!
Alternate ending to TBP2-
(inspired by:
1: Finn asking the Grabber what he wanted and the Grabber responding “what I have always wanted with you,”
2: the Grabber’s line about having every right to defend himself when someone is trying to take away his power,
3: everyone kinda just… leaving Finn on his own to deal with the Grabber trying to choke him to death (like honestly wtf?? Playing to win is one thing, but fuckin’ hell),
and 4: my own personal desire to have the Grabber’s attention be on Finn more consistently than it was in the movie lmao. I love Gwen but after the scene where the Grabber showed her Hope’s death, the movie’s conflict felt more Gwen vs the Grabber rather than Finn vs the Grabber with Gwen caught in the middle, which felt much less… well. It felt like so much less, because Gwen hated the Grabber for hurting Finn and killing her mom, but the Grabber was largely ambivalent towards her outside of her potential as a way to hurt Finn and then as the most direct threat to his continued ability to hurt Finn. If the movie had leaned on that a bit more - Gwen as an obstacle rather than the goal, I love you murderously dangerously protective Gwendolyn Blake - then I think it would’ve felt less haphazard and underwhelming. It was a great movie, but there were parts in it that felt inconsistent to the characters as previously established. Or just inconsistent period lol)
-where, instead of switching things up and trying to kill Finn before killing Gwen, the Grabber takes Finn while everyone’s distracted by trying to get the dead kids out of the lake.
The Grabber can interact pretty strongly with the physical world, so what’s stopping him from knocking Finn out cold and dragging him somewhere else - an abandoned cabin, maybe - while figuring out a new plan of action? He can’t just kill his Finney, of course; he needs the boy to suffer first, and he needs to kill the pesky sister while Finney’s still alive to care.
If the dead Grabber’s power comes from the fear of his lost victims, then taking Finn makes sure that the rest of the Camp Alpine Crew can’t steal his power even if they dredge up the dead kids, and Finn - as a living victim and a cursed/gifted/psychic kid - might be an even stronger source. The Grabber retains his power, continues to torment Finn, and keeps fucking with anyone trying to find them.
Finn wakes up with a concussion in the middle of nowhere with the invisible source of his trauma as his only company. The Grabber can still only talk to him through phones and the like (not sure how the whole scene where Mando was talking to the Grabber over the radio worked, but at least we know that phones aren’t the only option lol), so if Finn doesn’t pick up, then the Grabber can’t speak to him, but he can still punish Finn for being naughty and ignoring him. Finn starts picking up after the first few beatings, because he might hate listening to the Grabber talk, but he doesn’t have a chance in hell to escape if the Grabber goes too far and breaks his leg or gives him another concussion. Escaping is hard enough as it is when he can’t see the Grabber, can’t tell when he is or isn’t being watched, and harder still when he doesn’t know where the fuck he is and can’t take the chance of going the wrong way in the freezing cold. He’s torn between hoping that the others will find him and knowing that he had to save himself at thirteen and that no one came to help him on the lake.
Gwen gets all of the dead kids’ bodies to the surface only to find both Finn and the Grabber gone, and suddenly she couldn’t care less about the boys being found or her dreams not being just dreams or how frustrating it’s been to try and get Finn to listen to her, because the worst part of her life just came back for round two and she knows now that her dreams didn’t help her find Finney or defeat the Grabber - they help her put dead kids to rest, and she’s torn between wishing that she could dream about Finn and being terrified that she’ll see him one night because the Grabber finally killed him.
The Grabber also still has his sights set on Gwen, naturally, but she’s his plan’s biggest hindrance: he needs to kill her in front of Finney, but she’s aware in her dreams now, so he can’t influence her like he did before. He has to be more crafty about it, figure out ways to set traps, to lure and manipulate. He still appears to Gwen in her dreams every now and then, and Gwen is relieved by the knowledge that the Grabber is there with her, in an environment where she has power and can fight back, instead of with Finn in the real world. Finn, on the other hand, is doing as much as he can to keep the Grabber from visiting Gwen, because he doesn’t know if the Grabber wants him to witness Gwen’s death or if he just wants him to know that Gwen died and that it was his fault. The Grabber is not forthcoming, because he’s an awful horrible person who loves watching Finney in distress.
(I have like zero self control so I'm probably going to be adding a part two with all of the other ideas I have so far for this au lmao, and I'll probably keep adding to it as more come to me, but these are the basics!)
More additions and plot point ideas in no particular order!
Ernesto calls his family to let them know that he’s staying with Gwen because Finn’s missing again and she’s losing her mind over it. The Arellanos are very concerned for Finn and Gwen both, and Mrs. Arellano assures Ernesto that she’ll pray for them.
At first, Finn can’t see the Grabber, but the Grabber can still touch him. He’ll feel the Grabber brush his hair off of his forehead or cup his cheek or ruffle his hair, and he thinks he hates those more than the beatings.
The Grabber finds a handheld two-way radio (ranger cabin?) and is delighted that he doesn’t have to wait for Finn to pick up in order to talk to him anymore.
When Finn first wakes up, he’s dazed from the concussion, and the Grabber is so endeared by the nostalgia of it all. Finn stumbles around the cabin, trying to figure out where he is and what’s going on, and when he tries to open the door, the Grabber holds it shut. Finn tries and tries to open it, desperate and frantic, but he wears out before the Grabber does and collapses against the door, sliding down it to rest on the floor. The Grabber goes to the cabin’s disconnected phone and gets to watch Finney’s face as he finally, sluggishly puts the pieces together while the phone rings.
The first time Finn picks the phone up when the Grabber calls, the Grabber says, “Now this is more like it, isn’t it, Finney? There’s nothing quite like going back to your roots.”
The Grabber doesn’t need to eat, but Finn does, and the Grabber doesn’t trust Finney not to try and run while he’s out getting food for him. At first, he solves this problem by locking Finney in a closet or something while he goes and sets traps for poor unsuspecting rabbits and the like, but after finding the radio, the Grabber starts bringing Finn with him - after all, he shouldn’t have to do all the work around here, or maybe he just likes the idea of having Finney outside but still completely under his thumb. One such time, they see or hear other people. Finn freezes, mind racing, calculating, but the Grabber warns him that if those people see him, he’ll kill them slowly and won’t bring Finney any food until Finn finishes eating their corpses, and Finn is forced to hide and listen to the people get further and further away until their voices fade out completely.
This part also comes with the delightful concept of the Grabber teaching Finn survival skills, similar to how he’d teach the kids as a camp counselor, and Finn absolutely hating every second of it but still needing the Grabber’s help to stay alive, and therefore promising himself that, given the opportunity, he will do his very best to use everything the Grabber taught him to fuck him over. [For some reason this bullet point cuts off if I don’t add more to it :/]
The rest of the Camp Alpine Crew is way better prepared for the Grabber after the events at Lake Maru, and they all work together to make plans about what to do when the Grabber visits. Maybe they try to come up with ways to set traps (because, I mean, we still don't know how the Grabber travels from place to place. He was in two places at once when he was talking to Finn and making his first attempt on Gwen's life, and he vanished into the shadows afterwards, so I'm going to assume that he doesn't have to walk around everywhere like a living person) or to pry information out of the Grabber. Maybe they try to brainstorm ways for Gwen to turn the tables on the Grabber in her dreams, ways for Gwen to invade his environment rather than the other way around like it’s always been - anything to save Finn and stop the Grabber, once and for all.
Maybe after a little while, Finn and the Grabber start learning more about their respective abilities through each other- (which is an interesting thought! That the Grabber is such a powerful spirit not just because of his victims fueling him, but because he’s psychic at some level, too, seeing as he could also hear the phone in the first movie. I wonder if Finn or Gwen would be able to siphon power from other people’s emotions like the Grabber does, or if they’d have to kill people - claim their souls? - like he does. If so, I wonder if Finn could use the Grabber as a power source the same way the Grabber would be using him in this AU 🤔 him figuring that out might be a good climax moment, like Gwen taking control and exploding the phone booth in her dream. Anyways, sorry for the millionth tangent lol, back to the matter at hand) -and the Grabber gradually starts being able to manifest himself visually to Finn like Griffin did, which Finn of course hates, but he also likes knowing where the Grabber is - and, more specifically, where the Grabber isn’t. Of course, the Grabber can choose to be invisible again, but maybe if Finn can convince him that seeing him is worse for Finn than not seeing him, then the Grabber will choose to stay visible and unknowingly give Finn a fighting chance. The Grabber is, after all, canonically arrogant and chronically underestimates his targets. I mean, sure, he’s currently at like 9:2, but… those two Blake siblings really fucked him up lmao.
Finn escapes the cabin once, while the Grabber is visiting Gwen or something, but he doesn’t find his way to camp or reach any kind of help before collapsing. The Grabber finds him and drags him back to the cabin, and even though he’s definitely going to punish Finney later, once they reach the cabin, the Grabber bundles Finney in blankets and watches him sleep for a while.
“I forgot how sweet you can be when you’re not fighting,” he murmured, brushing a stray lock of hair out of his little Finney’s pale, exhausted face. “My naughty, naughty boy.” [Wtf? Ig it’s just the sub-bullet points in general that do that. Sorry lol]
Lots of comments from the Grabber about how different Finn is. Finn gets punished a lot more often than Finney ever did, because Finney asked questions and pressed and fished for information, but Finn talks back and swears and snaps at the Grabber all the time, throws things and breaks things and lashes out, starts bubbling with that quiet fury any time the Grabber starts talking about the dead boys but goes absolutely ballistic if the Grabber brings up Gwen or Robin or Bruce. Finn is bigger now, harder to overpower, but that just makes it all the more satisfying for the Grabber when he comes out on top. Finn should be too old for him to enjoy like this, but there’s just something so intoxicating about it, so much history and the fucked-up intimacy that comes from victimizing another person. Finn started drifting away from everyone in his life after escaping the Grabber, but the Grabber will always know him in ways no one else can, and they both know it, no matter how deep in his denial Finn tries to bury himself.
Edit: GASP the scene early on in TBP2 where Finn answers the out of order phone and says his “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you” line for the first time - I saw someone make a very compelling case for that having been the Grabber trying to contact him, and then Finn said that line again when the Grabber called him for the first time at the camp. I can totally see the Grabber needling Finn about that, saying shit like “I only got you the first time because you asked if I needed help, and now you turn away lost souls before they can even ask for help :( where did my sweet Finney go, hm?”
