Finally a horror film I’ve seen this year that is worthy of the name!

More often than not, sequels do not do justice to their predecessors. Sinister 2 doesn’t fall into the sequel trap.

While it may help if you see the first Sinister, you don’t have to see it to appreciate the film. It’s a stand-alone horror film all on it’s own. And as a continuation, I think it’s pretty damned good.

The plot, like most horror, is simple. After a mother, on the run from her abusive husband, and her nine-year-old twin sons move into a local rural house, they come under siege from the bloodthirsty pagan deity Bughuul, who seeks to consume the souls of the children and after which possesses them.

Shannyn Sossamon plays Courtney Collins, the mother of Dylan and Zach Collins, played by the Sloane Twins — Robert and Dartanian. James Ransone, who played Deputy So & So (no joke, that’s his name) in the first movie, reprises his role as Ex-Deputy So & So. Ransone does a great job in this film as the Ex-Deputy. He’s very obviously shaken by the events that took place in the first movie, and it shows in his performance.

As I am with all current horror movies, I was skeptical that this would be scary. In this Paranormal Activity world, startling is the new scary. How many times can we make the audience jump out of their seats?

Sinister 2 has a couple of good jump-out-of-your-seat scares, one of them at the very beginning of the movie. It also made a quick reference to the ultimate horror film, The Exorcist, and I appreciated that. It set the tone pretty well. Because of the use of the 8mm film clips, like the first Sinister, it does have a pretty decent creep factor. It didn’t give me nightmares; very few movies that aren’t The Exorcist do that anymore. But I did check behind my seat a couple of times.

My only serious critique is the use of the 8mm film. As someone who is prone to migraines, the use of home-movie style filming, with the jerks and jumping images can cause headaches. I also think it’s unnecessary. In the digital age, where I can take a video of my cat on my phone that doesn’t skip and jump all over the place, it makes no sense to use the “amateur filming” style anymore. I don’t think it adds to the authenticity of horror movies at all. Or any movie for that matter.

The kids in this movie, and there were quite a few of them, were all really good. The Sloane Twins and Lucas Jade Zumann (who plays one of the possessed souls, Milo) were so believable and authentic. This is probably the best thing I’ve seen Shannyn Sossamon in to date. I’ve never really been a big fan of hers, to be honest. But she was really great in this. She did a small mid-western accent and it worked great. When she is forced to return home to her abusive, asshole husband, Clint (played wonderfully by Lea Coco), you can really see how scared she is by him. You can see it with the kids, too, especially Dylan (Robert Sloane). When Clint gets his comeuppance, I almost cheered. I love seeing truly evil people get what they deserve. Any guy who beats his wife and kids is truly evil in my book.

With the Halloween season fast approaching, I think this was a pretty damn good start for the horror genre. The bottom line is that I would highly recommend this to horror movies fans.

Synopsis: The sequel to the 2012 sleeper hit horror movie. In the aftermath of the shocking events in “Sinister,” a protective mother (Shannyn Sossamon of “Wayward Pines”) and her 9-year-old twin sons (real-life brothers Robert and Dartanian Sloan) find themselves in a rural house marked for death as the evil spirit of Bughuul continues to spread with frightening intensity.