The first Sinister arrived during a glut of inferior horror pics but set itself apart with a nightmarish central villain and some truly chilling direction from Scott Derrickson. Its quality aside, though, there’s no telling whether Blumhouse Productions and Focus Features are onto something by spinning the legend of Buhguul into a franchise with this summer’s Sinister 2.
This past weekend, WonderCon took place, and Blumhouse and Focus took advantage of the occasion to screen a brief clip from Sinister 2, hinting at an expanded story that will turn Buhguul and his army of abducted children into a traveling band of evildoers, to be blithe. The sequel seems set to continue its predecessor’s habit of royally creeping us out, with threatening voice-over and lots of menacing, zombified kids.
Here’s the official 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 twins Robert and Dartanian Sloan) find themselves in a rural house marked for death as the evil spirit of Buhguul continues to spread with frightening intensity.
James Ransone, who has been tapped as one of Blumhouse’s new leading men with a role in its upcoming Ti West-directed In a Valley of Violence as well, reprises the role of a police officer (still unnamed) who is on Buhguul’s trail after he failed to save the doomed Oswalt family in the first film. Other than him, the pic includes new actors like Shannyn Sossamon and Robert and Dartanian Sloan.
Derrickson isn’t back behind the camera for this one (he moved onto Marvel’s Doctor Strange), but Ciaran Foy (Citadel) is taking the reins, working from a script that Derrickson wrote with his original Sinister collaborator C. Robert Cargill. Their return, and Derrickson’s involvement as a producer, on the sequel certainly gives us some hope that the pic won’t be a total loss, but we simply don’t know enough about it yet to figure out whether or not to be excited.
Sinister 2 opens August 21st. Check out the clip above, and some new images below.
