Sinister

 

While not a great movie, Sinister is filled with creepy atmosphere and more than a few genuinely unnerving moments.  This automatically puts it on a higher level than some recent dead-in-the-water "thrillers" like House at the End of the Street, The Apparition, and The Possession.  Like a lot of horror movies, it's a lot of fun while you're watching it, but as soon as it's over and your brain starts going over the plot, it doesn't hold up extremely well.  Just don't think about this one a lot, and you'll be fine.

Ethan Hawke stars in the film as Ellison Oswalt, a once-successful true crime book author who has hit hard times professionally.  He thinks the current case that he's investigating for his next book, however, could be the break he's looking for.  The case involves a family of four who were brutally murdered when they were hung by nooses on the old tree in the backyard of their home.  Mysteriously, the youngest daughter of the family went missing afterward, and is presumed dead.  In what is perhaps not the wisest of ideas, Ellison decides to pack up his family and move into the house where the murder occurred.  He does not tell them this, and fortunately, his trusting wife, Tracy (Juliet Rylance), does not question about the broken down old tree (the same one the family was hung from) still visible in the backyard.  One would think she'd hear from the neighbors just what happened in the house they moved into, and why they were able to get such a deal on it.  But, alas, she lets her husband get to his work, blissfully unaware of the truth.

Shortly after moving in, Ellison discovers some rolls of Super 8 film in a box up in the attic, along with an old projector to view them.  He begins watching the films in his office, wanting to learn something about the family, and winds up learning a lot more.  Turns out the films depict the murder of the home's previous occupants, along with a string of other grisly and seemingly-unconnected murders in other homes, which include drownings, stabbings, and burnings.  Doing some investigation with the aid of a local star-struck Deputy (James Ransone, delivering some effective comic relief here), Ellison discovers that the murders may have more in common than he initially thought, and that in all the cases, one of the children disappeared afterward.  It's also right about this time that Ellison discovers "something" bizarre in the background in all the films.  It doesn't look human, and it almost seems to be looking right at him within the films.

Sinister is pretty much all atmosphere and little logic, and it works well enough on that basic level.  There's a lot of the usual horror trappings here, such as loud bumps and footsteps up in the attic, shadowy figures walking just out of frame, Ellison's children suffering from night terrors and drawing creepy pictures on the wall the longer they stay in the house, and a genuine growing mounting sense of dread.  The dread is palpable, and the main reason why the film works so well.  Director and writer, Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose), along with co-writer, C. Robert Cargill (a writer for the Ain't It Cool News website) knows how to wrap his audience up in a sense of uneasiness.  He does this by showing bits and pieces of the terrifying "home movies" (which are easily the scariest part of the film), and also by pretty much keeping the evil entity in the background the entire time, while still making it feel like a dominating presence.  Rather than having its monster jump out in front of the camera every chance it can, the movie gives us a sense that it is always lurking in the shadows, watching the action.  It does this both with the voyeuristic nature of the movies Ellison finds, as well as the numerous scenes where the hero is fumbling in the dark, following strange sounds, and we always sense that there is a presence there with him.

It also helps that the movie is genuinely better made than what we usually get for the supernatural genre.  Ethan Hawke successfully portrays an introverted man who finds himself withdrawn even more when his obsession with the case he's uncovering slowly consumes him.  The young actors who play his two children (Michael Hall D'Addario and Clare Foley) are not your usual screaming mop-tops.  And Rylance (as Hawke's too-trusting wife) gives off an air of love and frustration that helps us understand her conflicted feelings for her husband.  In fact, I would have liked to have seen the family aspect expanded on a little more, especially the children, who seem to play a key role in the story, yet disappear for long periods of time in the script.  It's these performances, as well as the genuine creepy feeling that the movie creates, which helps lift the film above its obviously silly plot that makes less sense the more I think back on it.

 

Yes, Sinister is one of those films that you could spend days poking holes of logic into once it's over.  But, let's face it, the same could be said for a lot of movies, many much worse than this.  The way I see it, Sinister does what it sets out to do - It's a fun little horror ride that delivers some effective jolts.  You jump a little, you laugh a little after each jump, and it's a lot of fun if you see it with the right crowd.  It doesn't reinvent the haunted house movie, but no one said it had to.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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