Another found footage horror that plays like a film festival for psycho kids.
Quality horror movies are a real rarity. When you head out to see a horror movie, you expect an ok story with some creepy backstory, a couple of frightening moments, eerie music, and blood. You can expect all these things and not too much more from Sinister 2. The film follows a mother and her two sons as she flees her abusive husband. She takes the boys and decides to temporarily live in an old farm house that has a church with a sinister past next to it. Her two boys are visited by more or less friendly ghosts who help them discover gruesome super 8 films of murders after happy family occasions. It’s basically like a Sundance Film Festival for psycho children possessed by the boogie man.
The direction by Ciarán Foy was not bad, considering his lack of experience in full length features. He knew how to properly build up tension to properly scare audiences. However, at times, he telegraphs coming events a little too much and you are a bit prepared to see something horrifying. At times, the film seems a bit more funny than scary and may eek out a few more laughs than scares. The cinematography was good. The continued use of shoddy quality super 8 films adds a good creepy factor. The writing was bland and unimaginative. I’d hate to think that this trend of found footage will captivate the horror genre like ghostly and demon centric films have in recent years. We’ve already seen V/H/S, which was much scarier, and Sinister, and this installment only begins to exhaust the genre.
One of the problems with this movie is that if you haven’t seen the first one, you’ll feel a bit lost at times, although there is never a lost in translation moment. Another thing is the obsession with super 8 film footage. All of these snuff films just had to be filmed using a super 8 camera. First of all, where did these boys learn to use these old outdated cameras and why didn’t they shoot it on something more modern like their phones. The boogie man is a very discerning art critic I guess.
The performances in this film were average. James Ransone, who plays the ex-deputy had a rather uneven performance. At times he delivered on the role, but at other times he seemed like an awkward dad or teacher trying to relate to a younger crowd. He did offer great respites of humor from time to time. Sossamon, who played Courtney Collins, gave a pretty average performance. The two boys, played by Robert and Dartanian Sloan both gave great performances. They were convincing and displayed real emotion, which is rare for actors of such young age.
If found footage horror films are your thing then you’re going to like this one. The casual horror film goer will enjoy this for it’s thrills and timely jokes. If you’re looking for anything else like an interesting story, look elsewhere.
