Sinister 2

Jumping from an independent film to a mainstream franchise is a common course for young directors nowadays. The effect it can have on their career can be both a positive and extremely damaging. For every James Gunn, there's a Josh Trank that is stifled under the weight of pressure from both fans, studios and the general public who want to see that some creative flair on a wider scale with a bigger budget. Ciaran Foy, of our own shores, directed a well-crafted psychological horror in 2012 called Citadel. It did reasonably well at the box office and was a hit with critics and horror fans alike. As one would expect, it wasn't long before he was on his way to the big time and, on the outset, taking over the reigns of the newly-minted Sinister franchise seemed like a good choice.

The first film set up a demon known as Bughuul, who looks like a memebr of late '00s nu-metal band Slipknot. Bughuul's modus operandi sees him infect and turn a younger member of a given family to his bidding by forcing them to watch grainy Super 8 movies of particularly disturbing murders. The demon then brings a coterie of children with him wherever he goes and uses them to do his bidding. The first film was adept at setting this up and, for the most part, it was an interesting take on the demonic possession trope. The sequel sees Shannyn Sossamon, a young mother on the run from an abusive husband with two twin boys, settling in rural America and attempting to restart her life as best she can. The house is, as you'd expect, marked by Bughuul and, sure enough, begins to make his presence known to the elder twin. The snuff movies, which veer into OTT quite heavily, are forcibly shown to the lad - the alternative being that they'll haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.A hold-over from the previous Sinister is James Ransome, who plays the actually-titled Deputy So & So. His duty is that of love interest and as a walking sticky note for the first one.

Let's start with the positives. Both Ransome, Sossammon and the twins, Robert Daniel Sloan and Dartanian Sloan, all give decent performances and it's clear that they're better than the material itself. Likewise, Ciaran Foy proved that he has talent behind the camera with Citadel and we can see flashes of that same ability here and there throughout the film. What holds Sinister 2 back is its repetitiveness and its poor script, which is down to the original director Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill. What made the first one interesting was that the reveal of the central antagonist, Bughuul, happened over the course of the film. We had to learn, little by little, how he worked. Here, it's dropped in straight away and the sense of dread or mystery surrounding him is gone. Not only that, the constant use of 'air-horn horror' is weak and lazy.

More often than not, the scares in Sinister 2 provoke nervous laughter as opposed to a genuine sense of fear. Bughuul actually popped up on a tablet at one point. The Super 8 scenes with the young Robert Daniel Sloan are particularly gruesome and the deaths in the film are ramped up to a much higher degree. It's clear that Derrickson is trying to position Sinister 2 as a possible replacement for Saw, especially if the level of gore is an indicator. But what Ciaran Foy needs to do is distance himself from these franchise horrors completely. It's clear throughout Sinister 2 that he's polishing a turd as best he can, but isn't doing much for it. Let's hope his next effort, an Irish horror film set in the '60s, has better luck than this.