Sinister 2 (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
It’s difficult to imagine children committing the most horrific murders, definitely when it’s their own family these children kill. Nonetheless, that is exactly what this film is about. To make it even worse, these children, now ghosts, also encourage other children to do the same. Clearly, someone needs to put a stop to this, but that’s easier said than done. How do you stop ghosts children from doing that? How can the pattern be broken? Anyway, the sooner this can be done, the better, as Dylan and Zach seem to be the next ones to get under the spell of these evil ghosts.
Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon) and her twin sons Zach (Dartanian Sloan) and Dylan (Robert Daniel Sloan) have only recently moved to a new home, in a quiet rural community because she needed to get away from her abusive husband. It doesn’t take long though before Dylan is woken up regularly at night by a group of children’s ghosts. These ghosts lure him out of bed and make him watch home movies that show whole families being murdered in the most atrocious ways imaginable.
While Courtney and the kids are settling in their new home, not far from them ex-deputy So & So (James Ransone) is conducting an investigation into the murders that are connected to Bughuul, and to prevent anything worse from happening, he burns down every house where one took place, even though he is terrified himself, the more he investigates the cases. The next one in line to be burnt down is Courtney’s house and everything surrounding it, as the church on the property has once been the décor for a gruesome murder. But when he realizes that the house is occupied, the ex-deputy will first have to win Courtney’s trust. That doesn’t seem too difficult, seeing not much later they fall for each other. At the same time, he’d rather not stay at the house for too long, but he sees it as his duty to protect the family and thus stays against his own better judgement. Meanwhile of course, the threat remains, as the ex-deputy knows all too well, and he is determined to do anything in his power to save Courtney’s family from the same fate the families in the home videos suffered, even if it means putting his own life on the line.
When it comes to tempo in the film, there is no reason for complaining. The story flows at just the right pace and is kept interesting mainly by showing explicitly how the ghost children committed the murders on their families. Nonetheless, the story itself isn’t truly original, and the beginning, a mother moving into a different home with her two kids, sounds a lot like the beginning of The Diabolical, which we only reviewed last week. Certain plot twists are rather predictable, such as the fact that they end up getting forced out of their home, but other than that the story is enjoyable enough.
If you’re looking for real action scenes, then you might get a bit disappointed, as the story will never really get your blood pumping. Nonetheless, the horror is in the different ways the children chose to murder their families, which are very inventive, though gruesome at the same time. Thus the excitement in this film also really comes down to the question as to how the family will suffer the same horrendous fate as that of all the families on tape.
As far as acting goes, we weren’t really blown away. While Robert Daniel Sloan and Dartanian Sloan are quite convincing to watch, we can’t say as much for Shannyn Sossamon. Her acting just feels a bit off and does not really appeal.
Extra features are nowhere to be found on this Blu-ray release which, even though it didn’t feel really necessary, would nonetheless have been nice. We have to admit that we would have loved to see how these terrible murders were filmed, but we’ll have to do with only the film itself.
Conclusion
Sinister 2 leaves us with mixed feelings as the story itself isn’t bad, though not that original, but the acting is not always spot on, which does have its effect on the overall feeling you’re left with after watching this film. Nonetheless, if you’re into horror films that don’t really show much action, yet give you your fair share of horrific murders to watch, you probably won’t be disappointed.
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