Sinister Movie Review

Sinister (2012)

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Written by: Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill
Directed by: Scott Derrickson
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, James Ransone
Rated: R
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Plot
Washed-up true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt finds a box of super 8 home movies which suggest the murder he's currently researching is the work of a serial killer whose work dates back to the 1960s.

Verdict
It's a competent horror movie with a great story and more than a few scares. It's a budget movie that uses that to its advantage. This builds small scares instead of big set pieces, and that creates a great mood, but the underlying story is what propels this. It's rare to get a horror movie with a solid foundation, and if you like horror this is worth a watch. If you want to avoid being scared, stay away.
It depends.

Review
With Ethan Hawke in this, I figure at the least I'd see a good performance. I got more than that. I like the story a lot, this creepy demon that possesses children. All too often horror movies are built on a flimsy pretense, but this movie has an intriguing place to start.

The opening scene is dark and bewildering. It does come back around. Oswalt is researching a murder, he writes true crime novels. He's living in the house where a murder occurred.

Ethan Hawke plays Ellison Oswalt.

Oswalt discovers videos in his attic depicting murder various murders across time. While he should report it, we are to assume he's hatching a scheme to expand his novel. I wondered why all the videos are on super 8, especially when some of those events are quite recent. If you're wondering why outdated tech is used, that question will be answered.

Sinister is effective at what it does. Much of the movie is visually dark, and that lends itself to scares. Sometimes the scariest thing is when a movie leaves it to your imagination. While that's a budget choice with this movie, it's also very effective.
Plenty of horror movies stretch the premise too far, but this movie works. You don't quite know what's really happening and what Oswalt is imagining. I did wonder how his family didn't hear him screaming in the middle of the night. How do they sleep through everything? That seems like it could be a clue.

This does have a few jump scares, but they never feel cheap. This is a solid horror movie that relies on scares instead of set pieces. It's a Blumhouse production which relies on a strategy of low budget horror productions that turn a profit. It's effective, with Blumhouse's first movie, Paranormal Activity gaining widespread recognition.