Film Review: Sinister 2

Sinister 2 follows the events of the first film with now Ex-Deputy So & So obsessively researching the Bughuul mythology and investigating similar deaths to find out where this boogey man will appear next. His investigation leads him to a remote farmhouse where a family had been killed in the land’s adjoining church only to find single mother Courtney Collins living there with her twin sons Dylan and Zach. Knowing what he does about Bughuul’s practices and the fates of families who occupy the homes of his recent victims, Ex-Deputy So & So must act fast and find a way to defeat Bughuul and his group of ghost children.

Sinister 2 is a slick-looking film with lots of jump scares, but unfortunately doesn’t deliver the same visceral impact that 2012’s Sinister did. The sequel has all of the elements that made Sinister a stand-out film — good characters, tons of creepy atmosphere, the family death films, unsettling music and Bughuul — but somehow the sequel just doesn’t manage the same unnerving tone throughout that I experienced with the first film. It seems far too reliant on jump scares than atmosphere while giving us way too much Bughuul and delivering a less interesting score, which lacked all sense of dread heard in the first film.

Now before I dig too deep a hole for this film, I do want to say that I enjoyed it a great deal and I am recommending horror fans check it out, but it is a hard comparison when the first film was one of my favorite films of 2012. Director Ciarán Foy has done a great job creating and developing characters that the audience can really care for while also building out the mythology and back-story of the film. The film is shot wonderfully and the films within the film still retain that feeling of “something you shouldn’t be watching.” The end sequence was also a pleasant surprise as I thought I knew what was going to happen and the filmmakers delivered a great finale with some wonderful tension, character moments and scares that went beyond my expectations. It didn’t hurt that the most memorable music from the first film made a return in this sequence as well.

Sinister 2 is well worth a ticket purchase for horror fans and folks who are looking for a good shock. I am eagerly awaiting a third film, sure to be in the works.

Sinister 2 (2015); Director: Ciarán Foy; Starring: James Ransone, Shannyn Sossamon, Robert Daniel Sloan, and Dartanian Sloan