After Scott Derrickson’s micro-budget horror film Sinister joined the ranks of Blumhouse Productions’ successful spookfests, it was only a matter of time before a sequel ended up in the works. Sure enough, Sinister 2 was greenlit not long after the release of the first film, with a screenplay penned by Derrickson and his Sinister co-writer C. Robert Cargill, and Ciaran Foy (Citadel) attached to direct.
Sinister starred Ethan Hawke as a crime writer called Ellison Oswalt, who is desperate to relive his past successes and moves his entire family to a house where a brutal slaughter of an entire family took place and a young girl went missing. After a series of bumps in the night and the discovery of some fairly unpleasant home movies, he discovers that the murders were far from the first of their kind to take place, and that they were linked to a demonic, child-stealing entity called Bagul (or Mr. Boogie, according to his tiny child minions).
One of the highlights of Sinister was Ellison’s encounter with a well-meaning local deputy who earned the moniker “Deputy So-and-So,†played by James Ransone. The deputy was a rather bizarre character whose arc didn’t really end up going anywhere, so those who liked Deputy So-and-So in the first movie will no doubt be pleased to hear that Ransone will reprise the role in Sinister 2. This news comes from Deadline, along with the news that Shannyn Sossamon (A Knight’s Tale) will play the lead character in the film: a protective mother who moves into the deadly house with her 9 year-old twin sons.
The implication that Sossamon’s character will be moving into the main house from the last movie raises a few questions (spoilers ahead). The pattern for the murders established in Sinister was that each new family of victims became a target by moving into the house where the last victims had resided, but that they only sealed their fate after moving away and into a new house. Therefore, in order to make herself and her family a target, Sossamon’s character would have to move into Ellison’s old house (where he and his family were killed) rather than the house where the majority of Sinister‘s story took place.
There are a couple of possible explanations for this. First, it could be the case that Sossamon’s character does move into Ellison’s old house, and that Deputy So-and-So is concerned enough to make a road trip to warn her about what could happen to her family. It’s also possible that Sinister 2 will take the opportunity to rewrite Bagul’s mythos a little. Maybe after all those centuries he just feels like changing the rules.
Sossamon, who can next be seen on Fox’s mystery drama Wayward Pines, should make for a strong lead and the fact that this sequel was penned by the writers of the original movie bodes well for Sinister 2. If Foy can resist the cheap jump scares that plagued the first film, this could be a real winner.
Sinister 2 opens in U.S. theaters on August 21st, 2015.
