Ignore the critics. This was much better than the first movie

I rented Sinister 2 on VOD, and I'm actually wishing I had bought it instead. It's consistently entertaining from start to finish, and it expands on the basic premise of the original in a really interesting way. It basically shows you the possession/kill-video process from the perspective of the kids, and somehow they managed to pull it off in a way that actually makes sense and clears up some of the "plot holes" from part 1.

Some highlights:
-The ghost kids were surprisingly effective. From the trailer I thought they would just be an annoying prop for jump scares. Instead, they aren't used for scares at all, but rather as actual characters.
-The movie fleshes out the mythology and provides a completely fresh spin on the premise from the first movie.
-While the first movie mostly consisted of Ethan Hawke walking through a dark house and watching kill tapes, this one actually had a thoroughly developed plot with interesting characters.
-Without getting into spoilers, I'll say that the use of the two non-ghost kids was pretty clever.
-Lastly, best of all, this movie is actually enjoyable and ENTERTAINING. The first one was so oppressively dark and bleak that I would never want to watch it again.

Anyway, this is a solid 7/10 thriller/horror movie. Probably 8/10 compared to other modern horror fare. Really, the only thing I wish they did better was the kill tapes. Sinister 2's kill tapes were a bit too elaborate in some cases, lacked tension, and none were as creepy or disturbing as any of Sinister 1's tapes. S1's tapes would have you watching something, not knowing what the heck was going on, and then suddenly you'd see something insane. S2 didn't really "get" that aspect of the kill tapes, in that you could tell what was going to happen almost immediately.