Film Review: Sinister 2
By John Gove
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When it comes to sequels in film, they’re about as unpredictable as the weather. Sometimes we are blessed with a cinematic masterpiece such as Insidious 2, and on other occasions we are left questioning the current state of the horror genre. As I sat in my extremely comfortable reclining chair waiting for Sinister 2 to begin, I found myself consumed by nervousness and pessimism. The original Sinister was a pretty solid horror flick with an original idea and plenty of scenes to make one jump out of their seat. Would the sequel even come close to its predecessor, or would it cause me to sprint to the box office demanding a full refund?
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Sinister 2 shifts its focus to Deputy So-and-So and his attempt to destroy whatever killed the Oswalt family and so many others before them. The deputy’s plan of action consists of traveling to all of the houses where the murders occurred and burning them to the ground. If the houses are no more, then nobody else can die in them. Unfortunately, the deputy faces a slight hiccup when he approaches one of the murder houses and notices a mother and her two children living in it. The rest of the movie revolves around the deputy’s attempt to save the family and put an end to the wrath of Bughuul for good.
What made this film different from the first one is the viewer gets to witness everything from a child’s perspective. Sinister 2 demonstrates the entire recruitment process of a child chosen by Bughuul and his minions to murder their entire family and go off to live in the spirit world. Personally, I found this to be quite interesting, and it made the movie its own and not a duplicate of number one. If you loved the death videos in Sinister, you will be pleased to know that Sinister 2 has plenty more for you to view. This set of short films are a little higher on the disturbing scale which makes them entertaining but also a little harder to believe. Without giving any of the scenes away, I had to ask myself how a small child could physically put his or her entire family into position for these gruesome deaths to occur. Drugging them does not make them as light as a sack of bird feathers the last time I checked.
If you’re worrying that you won’t reach the same level of fright that you did with the original film, don’t fret because you will. I don’t care who you are, ghost children promoting the execution of one’s entire family are creepy. Sinister 2 relies solely on having people pop out of nowhere to scare the audience, which can become slightly predictable but it still works. The character of Bughuul is no longer this mysterious creature you only see in murder films or mirrors. The guy is seriously everywhere in this film and is the cause of most of the screams you’ll be projecting.
Most of
Sinister
2 had me quite entertained up until the last twenty minutes. What started out as a solid horror movie where nothing good happens, turned into a dramatic sequence of events that just did not need to be there. A good horror movie does not need to have a hero. I feel like a movie is a lot scarier if nothing pleasant comes out of it and
Sinister 2
would have been better if it followed this formula. I don’t want to give anything away to you fine people, but the ending definitely put a damper of things.
Overall, Sinister 2 was a decent movie that deserves your viewing. Yes, the ending stinks, but that cannot be the sole factor when determining the quality of a film. The storyline followed the first one well but added elements which made it unique. If you’re looking to be scared out of your wits, Sinister 2 does the trick with its string of hard to watch murder videos. Although it didn’t quite reach Insidious 2 status, this attempt at a sequel did not fail miserably. However, they better leave this franchise alone and not even dream about making a third movie!
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