Not half as terrifying as Norwegian black metal, but still one of the better found footage-gimmicked sequels in recent memory.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 27, 2015

There comes a point when you have to say no to these horror sequels. There's no skill or idea visible anywhere, just the sound of money being sucked from your pockets.

| Aug 26, 2015

Ransone's tone-deaf performance helps validate this knuckleheaded story's portrait of cinema as a potential gateway to pain and suffering.

| Original Score: C- | Aug 25, 2015

"I don't want to watch any more," declares terrorised youth Dylan. We know exactly how he feels.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 23, 2015

Like Roger Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum, Sinister 2 cheerfully tries to make sense of where sadism springs from.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2015

Creepy kids and sick jokes make for meager scares, but Ransone is likable as the film's beleaguered hero.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 21, 2015

It's possible to find some appeal here, but the overstuffed Sinister 2 has simply too much cheapness on its plate.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 21, 2015

This sequel, as rough as it is, might be more worthwhile than its 2012 original.

| Aug 21, 2015

Nothing in Sinister 2 comes across as believably scary.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 21, 2015

Nothing about "Sinister 2" comes close to the feel-bad ode to literally and figuratively dark interiors that distinguished the title-earning original.

| Aug 20, 2015

The sequel to the nastily effective horror movie Sinister, Sinister 2 loses two of the main assets from the first film: Ethan Hawke and the element of surprise.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 20, 2015

Despite Mr. Ransone's goofy charm, "Sinister 2" can't claim the same finesse, substituting pedestrian plotting and a more graphic gore for the original's restraint.

| Aug 20, 2015

It is odd to report that the film is at its best when it is most like a Nicholas Sparks adaptation.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 20, 2015

While nothing about Sinister 2 is especially memorable, it's reasonably entertaining with sufficiently lowered expectations.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 20, 2015

A Peeping Tom story rushed through as quiet-quiet-LOUD popcorn-spiller, with replacement players gabbling footnotes to the original legend, and a shoddily edited hide-and-seek finale.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 20, 2015

Not a moment of Sinister 2 is convincing or frightening, mostly due to the uber-stilted child acting and the flat, overlit visual palette, which pales in comparison to what Derrickson and cinematographer Chris Norr achieved on the shadow-laden first film.

| Original Score: D | Aug 20, 2015

"Sinister 2" is so close to being a good movie that everything bad about it seems ten times worse.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 20, 2015

The whole thing has a rather goofy feel to it.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 19, 2015

Baghuul ... looks like the lead singer in a Norwegian forest metal band.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 19, 2015

Sinister 2 comes up a bit short on creative resources, although director Ciaran Foy probably gets enough right to entice those partial to the original.

| Aug 19, 2015