The Black Phone 2 director says there was "a lot of pressure" when creating the Grabber's backstory, and that going more into his history "felt disrespectful to the true mystery of evil"

Ethan Hawke and Madeleine McGraw in The Black Phone 2.

The Black Phone 2 director Scott Derrickson says there was a lot of pressure to add on to the Grabber's backstory, but that he and co-writer C. Robert Cargill ended up finding the perfect balance.

"There was a lot of pressure. And when we test-screened the first movie, the audience kept saying they wanted more backstory on the Grabber," Derrickson tells GamesRadar+. "And there was a lot of pressure from the studio for me to add it. And I said, 'We don't want that in this movie.' You know, the power of the Grabber is his mystery. And if you try to give that backstory, explain it psychologically, it's gonna make it less scary. And I said, 'That's not gonna work. I just didn't do it."