Following right in line with recent horror films such as “Insidious” and “Paranormal Activity” is the new movie “Sinister”, the most recent scary flick hitting theaters just in time for Halloween. This film is another creepy horror movie that exists for the sole purpose of getting audiences scared. The question is “does the film succeed in giving horror fans the thrills and chills they seek?”
The story is fairly straight forward and simple. Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), a once successful crime novelist, is trying to recapture his glory days by investigating a gruesome murder of a family that was hung on a tree right in their own back yard. The mystery of what happened to the family consists of two parts – who would commit the murders and why was the fifth member of the murdered family, a little girl, missing. Ellison decides that if he studies the crime he will be able to solve the case and write a novel that will far surpass his first book.
Ellison figures that the best way to solve the mystery is to go to the crime scene. The writer, without telling his wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance), moves his family into the home where the killings occurred. In the attic Ellison discovers a box of super 8 films and a super 8 projector. Of course, our crime investigator’s curiosity takes over and he has to watch all the tapes. Much to his shock, the tapes detail gruesome homicides of several other families and it appears we have a serial killer at large. He sets up an elaborate board of yarn that looks like an FBI crime investigation connecting photos, maps, clues, along with dates and times. Determined to discover what connection lies between all the families in the tapes, Ellison enlists the help of the goofy town deputy (James Ransome) and a learned Professor Jonas (Vincent D’Onofrio) and starts to uncover the evil that attached itself to the victims and ultimately took their lives.
The mood of “Sinister” is very eerie. True to form, all the traditional parlor tricks used in horror movies are thrown into this film. Moviegoers are still going to ask themselves “why the hell doesn’t he turn on the lights?!” as they watch our main character stupidly walking down a pitch dark hallway when he hears things going bump in the night. There are shots of scary faces unexpectedly appearing in dark shadows that will cause jittery and jumpy moments as we watch the film unfold. The effect of seeing home movies shot on super 8 film effectively does the trick as far as creating a feeling of terror and dread. The projector ticking away mixed in with the movie’s soundtrack and nothing but white noise after the film rolls makes you believe that something is going jump out, but nothing actually happens other than creating the raw tension that scary movies should provide. Ethan Hawke, who is in almost every scene, has a strong presence as the main character and gets us invested in the story. Hawke’s facial expressions show us how disturbed he is by what he is watching to the point that he looks like he is losing his mind. The camera lingers on many shots so that disturbing images get embedded in your mind and you never forget that something dark is lurking just around the corner.
One appealing thing about “Sinister” is that little to no special effects are used to create the atmosphere and mood of the film. Quite a bit of attention to detail was given to the overall look of the movie and the pacing was just right to create that feeling of foreboding. Despite a few dumber than dumb scenes thrown into “Sinister”, the movie does accomplish the goal of a silly but spooky fun time at the theatre.
SINISTER opens October 12, 2012
