Sinister 2, film review: Chiller thriller that will wreak havoc on young minds

The sequel to Scott Derrickson’s mega-profitable 2012 chiller (now minus Derrickson, who’s been replaced in the director’s chair by Ciarán Foy) is often silly and, ultimately, not very scary. That said, it’s also thought provoking, occasionally droll and the home movies are great (the one involving frantic rats is a must-see).

For those who didn’t catch the first Sinister, here’s the premise: demon children use movies with twee titles (“Christmas Morning”, “Fishing Trip”) to encourage a carefully selected, often sensitive, human child to torture and kill members of their own family while a camera is running. The new home movie joins the back catalogue, at which point the cycle begins all over again.

Which brings us to single mum Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon) and her twin sons, Dylan and Zach, squatting in an isolated, rural house in order to avoid the twins’ brutal father. The young actors and Sossamon (she of A Knight’s Tale fame; imagine a healthy version of Winona Ryder) make a sweet and convincing family unit. And their interactions with an anguished ex-cop, Deputy So & So (James Ransone, a dead ringer, disconcertingly, for Happy Days’ Fonzie), have an emotional impact.

Like Roger Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum, Sinister 2 cheerfully tries to make sense of where sadism springs from. When I first watched Corman’s movie as a child I was deliciously terrified. Foy’s B-movie, I expect, will wreak similar havoc on impressionable minds.

Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout