“Sinister 2” brought back fans of the first movie for its long-awaited sequel; it continues the story of Ex-Deputy So & So and his mission to find and stop Bughuul, a demon that persuades children to murder their own families, and help the Collins family get out alive.

Scott Derrickson is one of my favorite directors, as he was also the director of “Insidious” with its loveable characters and a phenomenal plot line. I was expecting the same wow factor I had gotten from the first “Sinister” and the “Insidious” movies to come through here in “Sinister 2”. Though, for a director that loves to drive a movie using its plot, the movie’s plot was good in theory, but was very poorly portrayed.

The original “Sinister” kept me interested; children that were persuaded to do the deeds of a demon and slaughter their families was a new and fascinating idea to me. In the sequel, we were shown the persuasion of Bughuul from the children’s point of view; however, we ended up with not much of the demon, Bughuul, himself, aside from his low-quality jump scares throughout the movie.

The director decided to rely upon jump scares as a crutch, as well as needless gore. In the first movie, we were terrified as the father of two children starts to unravel the mysteries of the “cursed” house they had just moved into. He sees the horrifying movies of children killing their entire families, and begins to look like he is going mad. In the second movie, the “ghost children” weren’t scary and instead become some of the weakest characters of the movie.

However, as Derrickson normally does, he did make the main characters loveable, interesting, and easy to relate to. He even gave us some backstory for the Collins family, including the domestic abuse the family had to suffer and making us hope they wouldn’t all die by the end of the movie.

Altogether, I would have loved the plot to be stronger and not rely so much on jump scares and gore. I did enjoy the movie, and if I hadn’t had to compare it to the first one, it would have seemed much more interesting. I would recommend seeing it just to enjoy the work of Scott Derrickson and his loveable characters. I give it a 3 out of 5 stars.