Derrickson, Foy Talk Sinister 2 – New Director, Same Evil

“What I really liked about Sinister, [is] the larger meta idea of that you know it’s a horror film about watching horror films,” says Scott Derrickson, director of Sinister and now co-writer and producer of this August’s Sinister 2.  The filmmaker is speaking at a press conference alongside his co-writer C. Robert Cargill, and Sinister 2 helmer Ciarán Foy in anticipation of the horror follow-up. “The idea [of] that being a precarious business, and be careful what you watch and what your kids see; exposing yourself in both the allure and trauma of extreme imagery. Frankly it turned out it had a bigger presence and power than I thought it would in the movie. By the time it was finished I felt like I had made a movie about more than maybe I’d even intended.”

That’s carrying over. While Foy has taken the reins, it seems he, Derrickson and Cargill have dived into both what audiences and, most importantly, themselves latched onto in the first hit haunter. “That definitely informed the writing of the second one,” Derrickson adds. “There’s a more conscious presence of that idea in the sequel, I think that’s safe to say. Going in to the process of writing the script, the thing I was most adamant about was that you know the kill films and the idea of Bughuul killing; the creation of these homicides through art was, was I think the things that made Sinister. That’s going to be in there.”

On the trail of these kill films is the lone cast carryover, James Ransome’s P.J. The former deputy has traced Bughuul’s pattern right to Shannyn Sossamon’s Courtney, a mother of two contending with personal strife and her son’s nightmares. “Just think about the end of Sinister, because one of our starting points was that his [Ransome’s] character who we invest so much time in, is the one character in the movie that doesn’t really quite have closure,” Derrickson explains. “Because he kind of cracks everything at the end, he’s the one who calls and says ‘Oh my god I’ve figured this out.’ He’s pieced things together and then and then we know what unfolds after that, but we don’t get to see what it what it means to him and what that would do to somebody who had been that invested in trying to stop it. That was a starting point for us, to take seriously the emotional life of that character that the audiences love, that we are invested in. That’s where we’re definitely picking up.”

Also picking up is Foy, who made a big impression on horror fans and Derrickson with the anguished, personal Citadel. What’s perhaps funny is that a budding horror series whose big selling point are eerie films with old-fashioned aesthetic (Super 8) has our social media climate to thank for its latest director. Foy says, “I have Twitter to thank for getting this gig, as well. It was just a bizarre sort of thing where by I follow Scott on Twitter anyway and it was back in January or February or something that he tweeted ‘I just watched this movie, Citadel on Netflix everyone’s got to check it out.’ Then he started following me and direct messaging and asking me specific questions about it and then it was like, ‘would you be interested in reading the script for Sinister 2?’ Twitter Skype Netflix, 5 years ago I wouldn’t be here.”

He is, and like Derrickson, has a particular grasp on what viewers got out of Sinister 2’s predecessor. Though Foy and Derrickson share brief talk of Sinister 2 expanding on the mythology, he has a tremendously simple answer when asked how to make the movie’s pagan boogey man scary. One in line with the horrific acts on Super 8.

“Just put the camera on him.”

Sinister 2 is out August 28^th from Gramercy Pictures.