Why Sinister 3 Never Happened

In 2012, director Scott Derrickson’s supernatural horror film Sinister hit theaters and became an immediate success. Following the film’s release, Blumhouse Productions went forward with producing a sequel that released during the summer of 2015. With the success of the company’s other franchises such as The Conjuring, Paranormal Activity, and Insidious, Sinister 2 did not garner as much attention as they had anticipated. The premise of the films showed a promising future of becoming a franchise as great as the others. After five years, there has yet to be a third Sinister installment.

The first film followed true crime author Ellison Oswalt played by Ethan Hawke as he and his family move into a new home. After he finds a box of Super 8 mm film reels labeled “home movies”, he discovers a deeply disturbing series of murders orchestrated by children. Ellison takes the reels to a specialist in occult symbols only to discover that they lead back to an ancient boogie-man by the name of Bughuul.

Bughuul is the central monster of the two films. He uses his supernatural powers to manipulate children into killing their families and recording it all with a Super 8 camera. With the help of a group of ghost children, Bughuul is almost always successful in his attempts. However, in Sinister 2 he fails when the camera is shattered. If there is no camera, he may not be capable of continuing his insidious pattern. In the final moments of the sequel, Bughuul jump scares the screen. Technically, he could return at any moment.

Why Sinister 3 Never Happened

Fans have not heard any news about whether or not Bughuul will appear on screen since 2018. That year, Jason Blum announced that there was potential for an Insidious crossover with Sinister. He has since tabled the film but admits to have worked on it. There may never be another standalone film in the Sinister universe.

While the initial film was a success and garnered a great deal of profit and popularity, its sequel was ineffective and uninspiring. Sinister 2 relied too heavily on jump scares and shock value with little to show for it. The characters were underdeveloped and one-dimensional. Critics were especially harsh due to the expectations set by Blumhouse’s highly successful films that came out around the same timeframe. Ultimately, making a follow-up film was not in the cards with how unsuccessful the sequel turned out to be.

Despite the lost possibility of a third film, Bughuul is not done with his films and will make a reappearance at some point in the future. Until then, Sinister remains an intensely horrifying and disturbing supernatural film that fans return to time and time again.

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