What was it about Sinister that needed to be explored?
When the horror thriller Sinister proved to be a hit, producer Jason Blum (who is also behind the Insidious films) obviously thought a sequel was needed. "I really think the key to making a good sequel is to get the people who were involved in the original," he says, explaining his decision to go back to original screenwriters Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill. "If there's any theme of Sinister, to me it's taking a common crisis and escalating the crisis by putting it in a supernatural circumstance."
The children go all out to spook the grown-ups in Sinister II
Cargill adds that "everyone has a very different idea of what a Sinister movie is," says Cargill. "Is it the kill films? Is it Bughuul? Is it the kids?" As he and Derrickson pondered this, the one thing they agreed on was the need to bring back the hapless deputy played by James Ransone.
More: Watch the trailer for the first Sinister movie
Ransone has his own ideas about why the first one hit a nerve. "The atmospheric tension is why I think a lot of people like the first one," he says, "and that's based on the fact that the movie feels like a true crime investigation of something supernatural. That's still in there, and it picks up with my character following that."
Watch the trailer for Sinister II here:
For Ransone, the biggest challenge was stepping into the lead role. In the first film the deputy was a colourful side character next to Ethan Hawke. Now he's front and centre. "It was tricky because I had to take the comedic relief of the first one and expand that for an hour and a half," he laughs. "That was scary for me."
It helped to remember that the deputy is the audience's representative on the screen, facing a nasty monster. "He knows he can't take it on," Ransone says. "He knows he can only stop it, but I don't think that he thinks he can beat it. He's put in a position where he has to do it against his better judgment."
Yes, the movie's real star is the Bughuul, which Cargill describes as "an ancient pagan deity that seduces children and gets them to create art while killing their parents."
"People are always looking for an iconic horror figure," adds Blum. "I don't know if Bughuul is that yet, but he could be."
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