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Screams like old times

2012's "Sinister" was a darkly unique horror offering with a solid pedigree: actor Ethan Hawke ("Boyhood") in the lead, and writer/director Scott Derrickson ("The Exorcism of Emily Rose") delivering the disturbing tale of an obsessed crime writer who moves his wife and children into a house where a family was notoriously murdered.  "Sinister" didn't make much of a splash in a year when such releases as "Cabin in the Woods", "The Woman in Black", "V/H/S" and "American Mary" were on offer to satisfy the tastes of horror fans.  However, it's worth a look back for anyone who's into moody, mystery-based horror or creative mixed-media filmmaking, and for viewers who really want to challenge themselves with some genuinely unsettling subject matter.

What it wasn't worth was a sequel, and yet "Sinister 2" has arrived, courtesy of Mr. Derrickson, who co-wrote the follow up, and director Ciaran Foy.  Mr. Hawke is not on board for round two, so the sequel follows a secondary character from the original.  Fans of "The Wire" will recognize actor James Ransone as the hapless Ziggy Sobotka from the series' second season; here he's a former sheriff's deputy turned private investigator who's following up on the clues from the crime spree that Mr. Hawke's character uncovered in the original.  By now we know that families are being murdered, one child always disappears, and there's a demon behind it all.  Mr. Ransone's deputy/investigator - he's never actually given a name - has made a practice of locating houses where he believes the demon will strike next, then committing arson to prevent families from moving into the doomed dwellings.  This approach brings him to an isolated Midwestern farmhouse next door to a strikingly picturesque clapboard church - kudos to the film's set builders and the location scouts - where he encounters mom Courtney Collins (Shannyn Sossamon) and her two young sons, Dylan and Zach.  The family is on the run from something, and for a while it's interesting to see their drama unfold in tandem with the demon-murder storyline.

Younger son Dylan is plagued by terrible nightmares of three figures tied to stakes and set on fire in a cornfield.  We see him sleepwalk into the farmhouse basement where he's compelled by a cadre of ghostly children to watch a collection of films that prove to be an increasingly grotesque series of murders of families.  He's clearly being led toward something.  Meanwhile, Mr. Ransone is contacted by a professor who's got some info on the demon situation, and he takes a side trip to pick up a little backstory.  There's mention of an urban legend involving ham radios, an eerie, unsourced audio recording, and talk of the intersection of art and violence.  Mr. Derrickson and his co-writer may be aiming for profundity here, but they are undercut by the pointless nastiness of much of the rest of the film's content.

The most problematic element of "Sinister 2" is the collection of filmed murders that pepper the storyline.  The original had a similar through-line: Mr. Hawke's crime writer character unraveled the murder mystery by viewing a series of super 8 films of crimes in progress.  While the scenes were grisly they were also spare and brief.  The sequel seems intent on upping the ante on a number of fronts, and this includes those interstitial shorts.  Thus, we get more murders, with more complex setups, and the camera dwells on the crimes and the immediate aftermath rather than cutting away as was usually the case in the original.  It's almost like a throwback to the mid-aughts trend toward sadistic horror a la "Hostel".  Some fans may be fine with this, but it's certainly off-putting and has the unwelcome effect of making the viewer feel complicit in the nastiness just for sitting through it.

If that level of grotesque excess were supporting a strong storyline it might be excusable, but in "Sinister 2" that's just not the case.  The film feels like a concept in search of a story, and it's ultimately unsatisfying.  What does work is the artfulness that's gone into the short murder scenes.  Subject matter aside, they are small works of art; witness the setup called "Christmas Morning", which really does look like a home movie from the 1970s.  These shorts are accompanied by creepily discordant music that effectively telegraphs a sense of dread; it's another one of the elements that deserves to be supporting a stronger storyline.  Not unexpectedly, "Sinister 2" ends on a note that could herald another chapter.  Are we witnessing the rise of another unnecessary horror franchise?  If so, that's really something to dread.