R12 - Poster Analysis & Film Review: Sinister 2

On the 1st September, I went to watch Sinister 2 in Cineworld. Generally I'm not a 'horror fanatic' as I get frightened watching the trailers on TV let alone watch them on the big screen. Somehow I managed to buckle myself up allow myself to sit for an hour and 50 minutes of what I thought would be constant loud noises and shocks.  

In order to not have nightmares, I pretty much had my coat almost over my face the whole time however if I had known that the film wasn't in fact too scary and was just gruesome, I think I would've managed to watch the film without jumping. 

The film starts off with a clip (seeming like it was recorded on an old handheld video camera) of a family being hung on crosses in a corn field and being burned alive. Although low camera angles are generally used to connote the victim and their point of view. This links to when the next frame is of Dylan (one of two brothers - Zachary) waking up from a nightmare. This already entices the audience to believing the whole horror film will be based around him. The camera then zooms out revealing another boy, with scars on him (Milo) causing the first jump within the audience. 

Essentially, the film is about a wife and her two sons trying to escape their abusive father/husband, and in order to do so, hide in a vacant house with a church where there was recently a murder.  In the supermarket, Courtney (the mum) spots one of her husbands friends and desperately tries to escape. 

On the other hand, a private investigator (a friend of one of the people that died in the church) was closely investigating what had happened even though the case had closed. He investigates the numerous of murders and burns down the houses in which other murders had taken place in before another family moves into them. He arrives at the farm house to destroy it but soon realises Courtney and her sons are staying there. 

As it turns out, Milo and his ghostly friends all murdered their families (Super 8), creating a video of the whole process and now want Dylan to do the same. Zach, who gets increasingly jealous craves the super 8's attention. Dylan refuses to watch any more videos after already seeing families being eaten by alligators, electrocuted in a flooded kitchen, buried alive in the snow on Christmas day, and the church murder - nailed by the wrists and feet to the floor with rats placed on their abdomens, and covered with communion goblets which are heated with coal, forcing the rats to escape by eating their way through the abdomen. The Super 8 then turn their attention to Zachary, to carry out the murder.

The deputy advises Courtney not to leave the farmhouse as it may look weird in her custody battle although his actual motive was to prevent a massacre of the family's taking place. (The murders occurred only after the families fled the homes where the previous murders had occurred). However after he leaves, Clint (the husband) comes forcing them to go back with him otherwise she will lose custody of her children.

The next day, the family are out having a picnic and Zach starts setting up the camera to create his film. After realising Zach had poisoned them with a drink, Dylan texts the Deputy for help. By the time he comes, Zach had already carried out one the murders; his father by burning him alive on the cross, and was making his way towards Dylan. However the deputy pushes him out of the way with the car and unties both of them. Zach gets angry and chases them through the fields into the house with a sickle where the super 8 create chaos by throwing things making it harder for them to hide. Just before Zach kills Dylan and Courtney, the Deputy throws the camera out of Zach's hand causing the video camera to break. As he runs to check if there's another camera to finish his film, the Super 8 tell him how mad Bughuul is going to be. At the end, the deputy goes to collect his things from the motel he was staying out when Bughuul appears, causing the last jump of the film.

Overall, there were parts of the film I didn't really get however that is probably due to me not watching the first Sinister. If I had understood the plot properly, I probably would've had a better understanding of who Bughuul (the bogey monster) was and why he made children murder the families. The film was very all over the place, and it was until I watched it for the second time, that I understood the plot properly. At first, the scene was between the policeman and the researcher, who just found the old ham radio, which was then followed by the children leaving. The sounds from the ham radio was quite frightening as it stuck to the general horror conventions i.e. a crackling radio, children's voices, laughing and crying etc. However this did add a little chill in the atmosphere and made the film seem a whole lot more creepier despite the fact that I had no idea what was going on.

On the other hand, Zach's death was very quick and sudden and the film just felt like it had stopped with the shortest ending ever. In a matter of seconds, he was burnt alive yet the anticipation leading up to it made the audience ready for a much more accentuated death, however he was just touched and then turned into ashes. Stereotypical camera angles were used, such as a high angle to show his vulnerability and him feeling intimidated by the ghost children and Bughuul but the ending was quite a let down compared to the build up of the film. It didn't feel like the climax ended the way it should have. According to the reviews the film got around a 30 mark out of 100, and 16 critics had said it was nowhere as good as the first film. 

In my opinion, I think the hype about this film was much more than how good the film actually was. Although I'm glad the film wasn't scary, the plot was predictable and you could almost tell when you were going to be scared which defers from the usual conventions of a horror to surprise when you least expect it. There were parts of the film like when the deputy went back to his colleague and heard the recording on the old ham radio of murders related to Bughuul's work and at the end where the ham radio appeared again that I didn't get and there was too much going on in the storyline. The ending however led me to assume that there would be a Sinister 3, however I personally do not think there should be another one.

• The 'olga' effect makes the movie poster add a more spooky and dark element to it
• 'Sinister' is the same font as the previous film to continue it's branding and trademark
• On the '2' there is a drawing of 2 people being hung, looking like it's been drawn by a child to add the the theme of a child being the murderer
• The blood on the wall is a conventional aspect of horror films which in this case is creating the face of Bughuul. It is centred so that it us the first thing you can see
• One of the boy's is touching the mouth of Bughuul however turning his face away yet the other is standing straight with a distorted face connoting that the innocence of children will always belong to him. 
• There is a barcode pin in the left bottom corner so audiences have another form of finding out more information about the film.
• Other texts are either in white or red to stand out against the black.
• Social networking sites are listed at the bottom so that audiences can get in touch
• The grey dark dirty wall has cracks in between - dirt and brokenness assuming it's an abandoned house, also associated with horror films.