Sinister

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Fred Dalton Thompson, Clare Foley, James Ransone, Michael Hall D'Addario
Directed by: Scott Derrickson
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
2012

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A true crime writer (Ethan Hawke) moves his family into a home where brutal murders took place. As he begins researching the event, he soon begins to believe whatever causes the violence still exists in the house.

Review:

Tim: This is a pretty exciting time to be a horror fan. Now, I'm not crazy about the genre, but I've seen a lot of horror movies and I always root for the genre. It's very easy to make a terrible horror movie, but it's significantly more difficult to make a good one. Lately (over the last decade), there have been a number of great horror movies. While Sinister doesn't quite live up to the best of the bunch, it's another solid entry. I enjoyed this movie very much, and I would consider it a horror movie success.

Director Scott Derrickson has done a good job of creating suspenseful supernatural horror movies that feel very grounded in real life. His Exorcism of Emily Rose was one of those truly great horror movies I mentioned, and Sinister is an enjoyable, frightening film as well. I love that this film is rooted at least partially in a believable world. Our protagonist is a true crime writer who covers grisly murderers and has shown a knack for finding evidence that eludes the police. This doesn't make him many friends in law enforcement, but it sets the stage for an interesting movie. I really liked the experience of watching this film.

In some ways, this movie delivers a story very similar to dozens and dozens of other horror movies- a family moves into a house where murders took place, and whatever force was at work then is still at work now. How many times have we seen that exact same movie? And yet, the story here never felt redundant or overplayed. Derrickson does a good job of adding little unexpected twists and tweaks to make this film feel fresh and different. I liked the idea of the mysterious box of projector movies in the attic. The movies show horrific murders taking place. What would that be like, to watch actual people die? How terrible, how frightening that must be. I liked that this film used that as a source of suspense and terror.

The cast was fine outside of Ethan Hawke. I love that Hawke was been emerging as this solid horror/thriller movie actor. He has real talent as an actor and so he brings a level of class and realism that many other actors wouldn't be able to bring. Now, he does a number of things in this film that no sane person would ever do. That does detract from the quality of the film- I hate when horror movie characters do completely illogical things because they need to in order to push the story forward. Despite his character's ridiculous behavior, Hawke does a good job of giving a believable performance. The rest of the cast is pretty forgettable, outside of a small performance by Fred Dalton Thompson as a local cop. Still, this movie is really about Hawke's character, so this isn't too bad.

This film does a good job of creating an unsettling atmosphere. I wouldn't say I was necessarily scared at any point in this film, but I did feel somewhat creeped out from time to time. This movie intrigued me and kept me on the edge of my seat, which is exactly what a horror movie should do. While Sinister doesn't do enough to be considered a great movie, it's definitely better than the average horror film. This is a solid movie and one I really did enjoy watching.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Purge, Insidious, The Exorcism of Emily Rose