Sinister
| release date | October 12 2012 |
| studio | Summit Entertainment/Lionsgate |
| director | Scott Derrickson |
| writer | Scott Derrickson, Robert Cargill |
| starring | Ethan Hawke, James Ranson, Juliet Rylance |
| rating | R |
| tagline | Once you see him, nothing can save you. |
| site | haveyouseenhim.com |
| trailer 1 | Trailer #1 |
1 Comments
Sinister had some cool parts but nothing spectacular at all. I guess if you are terrified of children painting stupid pictures and talking to dead people then you might find this entertaining. Slipknot fans will be delighted to see the guitarist Jim from the band become a lame new horror villain. Bottom line children aren’t scary and neither was this movie.
A genuinely disturbing ride, with a good cast, cool effects, and an excellent slow burn pace that kept the audience at my showing on the edge of their seat. Give this one a chance and let yourself get involved, there are plenty of fun tricks up this film’s sleeve. I don’t usually write reviews, but I think this film deserves a better score than it’s received.
I went to see this with very minimal expectations. Quite honestly, I didn’t know how to feel about it. Anyway, I found the movie really boring, I was dozing off a few times during it. There was nothing scary about this at all. I liked Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose, so I had a small amount of hope. The jump scenes were lame, the lawnmower one was good even though it didn’t make me jump. The acting wasn’t that good, and the characters were unlikeable. The only thing I liked about it was the twisted footage, and the ending.
From first glance at the trailer, I knew there was something about this movie that would stick with audiences. Upon execution, I was not in any way disappointed. Sinister maintained a perfect blend of eerie feelings with just enough gore and shock to make you uncomfortable. I believe this was due in large part to the bad-ass soundtrack that accompanied the film. Not only was it very industrial-esque, where it needed to be, but it often gave this drawn-out, almost hypnotic, feeling that sucked you into the scene and left you in shock at the climax of it. Albeit, there were a few cheap jump scares in the film that I felt it could have done just fine without, but that’s always going to be an element in the horror genre that won’t die out anytime soon. However, Sinister did something that I haven’t seen much in many other films. When it flashed an image meant to be a jump scare, it sometimes let the image linger in your face to force you to stare at it. For example, the scene near the climax when Ellison is walking through the hallways and the dead children are behind him at every turn. It brought them on-screen as a jump, but it let you inspect them as they slowly ran off to that dream-like music as if to burn their image into your brain.
Over all, I feel Sinister was well done, completely eerie, and accomplished its purpose. I’m still seeing comments left and right about how people were afraid to go home that night, and after all, what is good horror if not something you leave the theater with? Or rather, something that leaves the theater with you.
Ever since the very first trailer came out I thought, “now this looks good!” However, some quite poor reviews came in so my dreams were shettered slightly. But then suddenly some rave reviews came out, even from my favourite critic, Chris Tookey who gave it 5 stars! My faith was suddenly re-installed and I was incredibly excited to see it. It didn’t disappoint!
With “The Cabin in the Woods” and now “Sinister”, 2012 is restoring my faith in modern horror. It’s a truly outstanding film that had me gripped for its entire 115 minutes. The film doesn’t dawdle about too much either, it opens with a highly unsettling clip of found footage and then we get a beautiful swooping shot of a man and his family moving in to a new house. It’s a standard set-up that we’ve even seen a few months ago in the surprisingly fun horror, “The Possession” but it’s a clever one because we’re mostly focussed on our hero and in a sense that is what the film is about. His obsession with himself and trying to be re-ignite his fame after writing a highly successful debut true crime novel, followed by several duds.
I was quite surprised as to how much exposition was given to the main character and it only makes the film even more compelling than it is. He’s also played brilliantly by Ethan Hawke, who makes up for the lack of acting skills his wife posssses. It reminded me a little of “The Shining” with the egotistical novelist stumbling upon a certain ghostly history, and it certainly contains the same amount of creepy moments. Ethan stumbles upon the super 8 films quite quickly which I was surprised and pleased about, as all too often there’s a belated exposition before anything remotely frightening happens.
These super 8 films are masterpieces in themselves. It’s a sort of car crash effect, as you don’t really want to see them, but you can’t stop watching. They’re all incredibly creepy, unsettling and sinister (like what I did there?) They are also set-up perfectly with the horrible grainy picture, silence as well as highly unsettling music that all adds to the creepiness. All of them are engaging and compelling to watch. They’re also very chilling and are sure to engrave themselves into your mind for a long time after the film has finished.
From then on it’s an intriguing and creepy mystery as more and more disturbing information is uncovered. It’s also clever how it’s unclear if some of what Ethan’s seeing is actually real or not. Is he really hearing noises or is it just the whisky talking? I liked the whole family element as well, showing the protaganist as not just some perfect hero, but also as a flawed character. The whole strained relationship with his wife is a fantastic element on top of the central ghost story. Although the woman who plays her is incredibly wooden!
There’s a strong, unsettling atmosphere that underlies through the whole film. The demon man is also quite frightening and not too much is explained about him which certainly adds to scare factor. I’ve heard people call this a boring film and a bad film, but it’s none of these things. It’s a genuinely horrifying horror film with fantastic writing and directing. It’s the type of film that gets under your skin and leaves its print in your mind for a long time after the credits have rolled. The ending is one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen in a horror film and I’ve seen many!
“Sinister” is a ghost story of Japanese proportions. By the end, I was actually terrified and had chills all down my back, which is something that doesn’t happen too often. I never get scared wtaching films, but after this and seeing “Noroi: The Curse” which also frightened me, I was starting to think that I was becoming soft! But then I thought no. These are just brilliantly scary films that are high on atmosphere and don’t solely rely on jump scares like too many American ghost films. “Sinister” is one of the best horror films this year. It has a relentless sense of dread throughout and is also incredibly effective and compelling. I can’t wait to see it again, and also can’t urge you enough to go and see it for yourself. Ignore Mr.D’s review! Although, I’d recommend a night light for when you sleep.
I have mixed feeling about this movie cause it has some story problems but yet it is an extremely disturbing and scary movie that you probably shouldn’t miss. The true horror in this film comes from the “home movies” on super 8 film that are found in the film. The super 8 footage is horrifying and so deeply disturbing. Not to mention how scared I was in the theater and its been a while since a movie has actually scared and disturbed me. Its not a perfect movie but if you love horror you got to see it. Its a movie that will stay with you. Images from it are still playing in my head.
I went into this film with low expectations but I was very surprised. I thought the story was very cool and refreshing. The jumps, however expected, were still very effective. I jumped a few times and I usually don’t jump. The problem I had was with the lack of gore. This would have been so much more disturbing and memorable if they would have spent more time and added some splatter to go with the scares. It felt very “syfy or chiller channel” to me. I mean if you are going to have a lawn mower kill then by all means show the good stuff. Overall good movie that I will probably add to my collection. More gore would have probably got a 5 skulls from me. Check it out!
CommentJust came back from watching this and I gotta’ say that it was sooooo boring. I wanted to like it so bad and I was so excited to see it, but it just wasn’t that good. It wasn’t even that scary. What I thought would be one of the years better horror flicks turned out to be a yawn-fest lol
- One really good scare scene
- Really cool sound
- Too many jumpy parts shown in the trailer and didn’t have enough substance to redeem itself from that
- Good mystery kind of horror film, probably the best mainstream one at that
- I wanted more crazy killing rituals, but I always want more of that stuff
7/10
Sinister is the best horror movie of the year hands down. Aside from a few plot issues, this is the horror movie of the year and really deserves an audience. Forget Paranormal Activity 4, Sinister is the Halloween movie to see.
this is not a good movie.
Not bad, but never great. It is an original attempt at a horror story that resorts to many paranormal film cliches and ends up being a just adequate film. A few creepy moments that will scare soccer moms more than any other audience member. I would give it a pass but nothing more.
The lawnmower scene was groovy. Other than that,this movie was silly. The “Pagan deity” looks stupid and has little to do with anything. The ending is absolute crap. I was cautiously optimistic that this movie would be good. Silly me, I fell for the hype machine once again…
Ethan Hawke gives a fine performance as a slightly self-absorbed writer who concentrates on unsolved crimes that involve missing children. So, why not move the family into the house where one such crime took place and not tell the wife, while you work on a new book about the incident? She has a cool British accent but seems a bit dim, and so it doesn’t dawn on her why the large tree in the back yard with a sawed off branch hanging down hasn’t been trimmed up since the last residents left.
The kids don’t like living there and having to attend a new school… that’s understandable (especially when we learn late in the movie that the house they had to leave is a virtual mansion). One of them is a sleep-walker and the other seems to develop a psychic link to one of the residents ghosts. Plus she likes to paint pictures on the wall. We know we will soon see things we would rather not.
The plot is set in motion when the writer discovers a box of 8mm home movies in the attic, and decides to run them late at night in his office while the rest of the family is sleeping. They happen to be typical films of family fun (different families in each) which all turn sinister when the end of each reel shows footage of horrific multiple murders of the various families. These late night sessions of what can only be describes as snuff films are perfectly abetted by a remarkable soundtrack that is as disturbing as the images shown. The films begin to work on the writer’s mind, along with the booze he always keeps handy. He starts to notice things… a cryptic symbol scrawled on the wall and a mysterious demonic face on a figure that is obliquely seen on each of the movies. Then begin the sounds… creaks and bumps and totally disturbing noises coming from other parts of the house. At one point the power goes out, but it hardly matters since this guy never turns on the lights.
Well that’s enough I hope to convince you that this is one of the better horror offerings of recent years. It briskly paced with many suspenseful scenes, a couple of which will remind you of the Paranormal Activity series. The explanations start to come but increased knowledge doesn’t alleviate the growing sense of dread, and all of it builds to a truly horrific ending.
Clever, well-made, with plenty of creepy moments, and I can’t say enough about the incredibly dark and disturbing sound design, with a handful of industrial trance-type songs that are a perfect match to the hypnotic and unsettling images. “Sinister” works well in a field that has lately become too derivative. The secret is linear development and internal logic… if, that is, you can accept the reality of the paranormal.
This movie has some elements of silly and didn’t really make sense, but it scared me. A lot. I don’t think it was silly enough to outweigh the scariness and as others mentioned it does deserve a better score than the official review. Compare this to a really stupid movie like ATM and it’s a friggin masterpiece. I will have trouble sleeping tonight and I might never have kids or move house again.
I would give this a 1.5 but that is not possible. Another hyped up movie which was a flopper
The movie pulled you in at the start and progressively got weaker.
There where some interesting twisted parts near the start but the killings became less interesting which appeared like a desperate attempt to deliver a variety of methods to dispose of the families.
The demon or what ever the guy who looked like the joker was, fell flat in appearance and was disappointing.
The only part that really stood out in my mind was the child swinging on her dead parents legs, which was fucked up, minus that part, the movie was not really sinister. The fact the parents did not survive is a step away from typical Western horror movies, which is a good trait I believe.
After watching this movie I did not discuss it with friends, it quickly sank to the back of my memory, that is how unimpressive the movie actually is.
Just finished renting this one. Pretty decent and worth watching. I have seen so many horror movies, that I had figured out the plot(and ending) within the first 30 minutes or so. The appearance of the super 8 film that shouldn’t have been there gave away what was to come later on. However, the best parts of the movie are the videos of the super 8 film! To me, they were the horror part of the movie. The children shown in the background of the movie a lot, were not scarey at all to me. They are technically victims of the creepy sinister guy(who is scarey)The children are possessed, so really it is the demon type guy to fear. I would rather be a person killed, than be the child whose soul has to stay with the demon! I can see a Sinister 2 in the future, where another family moves into the writers home.Really could go on and on, until someone figures out not to move and face Mr. Sinister once and for all! Hopefully that happens before Sinister 4 or so, because remakes are not always so good.
I give it 3 Skulls out of 5
Sinister is a film which seems to have both strong fans and a large amount of non-fans. Certainly the Bloody-Disgusting review of this film made it out to be a fairly bad one. While I am grateful to BD for introducing me to so many great Horror films throughout the years, I am beginning to think I may have outgrown it a bit.
You see I found this moveie to be a deeply unsettling, gruesome and ultimately chilling story of obsession and primal fears. Ethan Hawke’s character, in particular struck and interesting tone as a True Crime writer who found immense success with his first novel, which helped crack open a previously unsolved case. Sadly 10 years later and two folps later and he finds himself at the end of his rope, going so far as to actually buy and move his family into the house where a family of four were murdered via hanging, with their daughter vanishing.
The first series of images shown does a great job of unsettling the audience and establishing an almost casual presentation of great violence at the same time. A series of super 8 movies found in the attic, each presenting even more unsettling imagery, combined with some powerful sound effects and corner of your eye imagery.
This was perhaps the best horror film I have seen since Insidious was released, Insidious was also a movie that made great use of sound and corner of your eye effects to produce a creepy, jump-scare filled story.
Much like a child who grows out of his toys, I feel like perhaps the editors here are simply burned out from watching horror films. Certainly taking breaks in my viewing of them has benefited me in helping me maintain my joy in being scared. Perhaps the editors need to step back for a while and recharge their batteries, as this was a chilling and genuinely scary movie. The arguments about internal logic and what a character “should” and “should not” do seem rather strange for a genre predicated on suspension of disbelief.
In any event, I strongly recommend this film but warn that the more casual horror film viewers could be turned off the the casual delivery of such savage imagery.
What a frustrating movie. There was so much here to really enjoy, and yet so much more that made me go WTF? The good was that there were some truly disturbing scenes and that in many ways this was an utterly depraved (though quite bloodless which I’m okay with) movie. On the other hand, as others have said, the plot was such a complete mess that I just had to say it was a terrible story. Nothing connected. Many many things were built up only to never come to any sort of conclusion. Characters were there for no other reason than to give us info we really didn’t need. I NEVER got the feeling that the husband wife were actually husband and wife. And at times it was so friggin dark that I found myself saying will someone just turn on a light so I can see what the hell is going on. It’s odd to say but this was a genuinely creepy, really bad movie. Is that even possible? I guess it is.
p.s. – I just can’t figure out how to do the half skull thing, because I really wanted to give it 2.5
I really enjoyed this movie because it had a pretty original story line, creepy scenes, and generally good outcome.