Review of Sinister 2 (2015) by Michael M — 24 Aug 2015

In terms of horror sequels, Sinister 2 isn't bad. It's not great, and not nearly as good as the first Sinister, but it's about as good as I expected it to be. This movie is getting a lot of hate from critics, and a fair amount of it I will admit is warranted. There's a lot about it that feels forced or rushed, such as the super 8 murder tapes which make a return but are shoehorned in in the laziest way possible and are overly disturbing. In the first Sinister, there was a simplicity to the tapes that made them feel more genuine and thus more upsetting. Here they seem to take a cue from the Saw movies, attempting to up the gore and creativity at the expense of realism. There's also a lot of points in the movie that just don't make sense. I liked that it tried to expand the mythology of the Sinister series, but each new detail just raised further questions, and sometimes characters do things that just plain don't make sense.

For a lot of people, all this will ruin the movie. Maybe I'm more forgiving, maybe I just wanted to like the movie, I don't know, but while these things bothered me they didn't ruin the experience. I loved the first Sinister, and I enjoyed seeing the story continue in this one. It's the next chapter in the story rather than a rehash, and I was interested in seeing where it was going. I liked the return of Officer So-And-So, and I liked his genuine reactions to the weird stuff that happened to him. I also just enjoy the trope of murderous children, and that's expanded on more in this entry than it was in the first one.

Sinister 2 is just good enough for me to recommend and hope for a third entry. It has plenty of flaws, and for many these flaws will ruin it. For me, there was enough to like to look past them.