The film severely lacked the class and prowess of its predecessor, with this movie pushing so hard to be shocking, that it forgot to be scary.
The only recurring character is Ex-Deputy So and So (yep, he still is yet to be named!) who ends up getting involved with mother, Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon), and her two children, Dylan and Zach (Robert and Dartanian Sloan); after he realises that they have unknowingly made themselves the next link in Bughuul’s chain.
A redeeming quality of the movie was that there was no time-wasting when it came to setting the atmosphere, our opening scene sees young Dylan having a nightmare of how his family will die- prophesying a later scene, although its not quite how he dreamt it- this sets the audience up straight away for events of a disturbing nature to unfold. It has to be said that throughout the film both Robert and Dartanian worked wonderfully with the very graphic and adult content they had written for them; yet it provided another feature of the film that felt quite disjointed, the amount of physical and verbally abusive scenes got to the point where they lost their shock value and simply became uncomfortable to watch.
But, with this family comes a sub-plot of martial and child abuse that caused Courtney to take her kids away from the overpowering presence of their father Clint (Lea Coco). It provided a clever excuse for both of the children’s strange behaviour, so much so that the mother never questioned what her children were really seeing until it was too late.
However, the sloppy aspects of the film stemmed from its comedic dialogue, particularly from the mouth of our Ex-Deputy (James Ransone)- although I have a feeling he was only there to serve as comic relief, given his like-ability. The deaths in this film were far more gruesome and elaborate; but slightly inconceivable for a child to commit. It was clear that director, Ciaran Foy was going for dramatic, face-squirming, have-to-look-away-you’re-that-disgusted deaths, so in that respect he succeeded.
What should have felt like a natural extension of Sinister, a continuation of all its effective scares and devices, sadly felt more like a amateur’s attempt at it that relied repulsing the audience because they couldn’t scare us with what they had produced.