SPOILER ALERT: This article contains very light spoilers about “ Black Phone 2 ,” now playing in theaters.

The minute Joe Hill saw The Grabber’s mask, he knew “The Black Phone” could become a franchise.

“The mask was crafted by Tom Savini and Jason Baker,” Hill says. “I saw the mask with its swappable mouths: Sometimes the devil face is grinning, sometimes it’s frowning, and sometimes he has no mouth at all. I saw that mask and thought, ‘Oh, I think there’s gonna be a whole bunch of these movies.’ It struck me as instantly iconic in the way Freddy Krueger’s glove is iconic, in the way Michael Myers’ mask is iconic. I thought, ‘This is nightmare fuel, and people are going to want a lot of it.’ I thought he had the potential to become of these big, memorable ongoing horror villains,

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