Aylmer to Zazzoo and Beyond: Sinister

Friday, October 12, 2012

Sinister - Review

Sinister
(2012)
Horror | Thriller
120 min.

Rated: R Scary, intense horror film involves kids and murder. What parents should know.
Grade: B-

Director: Scott Derrickson
Writers: Scott Derrickson (screenplay), C. Robert Cargill
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance and James Ransone | See full cast and crew

Sinister is a frightening new thriller from the producer of the Paranormal Activity films and the writer-director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Ethan Hawke plays a true crime novelist who discovers a box of mysterious, disturbing home movies that plunge his family into a nightmarish experience of supernatural horror. -- (C) Summit

Being a fan of Horror films puts you in a bit of a quandary. To feed the 'scare adrenaline' addiction you will see all the Horror films available but as you do so you become jaded to the scary on screen images and the repetitive formulaic stories all of which makes it harder and harder to frighten you, leaving you feeling disappointed and cheated.

Eventually you find yourself watching things you know intellectually are terrifying, even if you don’t find yourself the least bit scared. On top of that Hollywood's major horror offerings are little more than formulaic following cash grabs, Horror film watching soon becomes a thankless endeavor. That being said, every now and then along comes a major release that surprises. It leaves you turning on every light in the house (unlike the people on screen), you don't relish the idea of walking home through the dimly lit, quiet streets alone, or you find yourself peeking through the window at the back seat before getting in the car. Writer/director Scott Derrickson has delivered a creepy little gem pretty much hits the mark.

Sinister stars Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) as an exposé writer of true-crime stories. He moves his family, without disclosing to his wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance) or children Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario) and Ashley (Clare Foley), into a house where a horrific family murder took place. He’s desperately wants to be the author of the next In Cold Blood. However, strained finances and a failing marriage are driving him to drink and to hear and see things that go bump in the night. He finds a box full of super 8 'Home Movies' in the attic of the house, depicting not only the murders that took place there, but also connected ones in other cities. The grisly images he sees in these films do absolutely nothing to help improve his state of mind. It doesn't take a genius to, early on, see the eventual twist coming, but with the movie being told essentially from Ellison's perspective, the predictability isn't a distraction. Mr. Derrickson creates a goosebumps raising occult thriller that has a significant number of 'made-you-jump' moments that are merely cheap adrenaline rushes in lesser films. Here, though, they are earned through the skillful direction, writing and acting further heightened by Christopher Young’s unnerving soundtrack. It all comes together to create a truly creepy ambiance.

Plot

Spoiler Alert!

(Via Wikipedia)

The film opens on Super 8 footage where a family of four are standing under a tree with bags over their heads and nooses around their necks. The family is lifted by their necks and strangled until they are dead.

Months later, true-crime novelist Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) moves into the same house as the murdered family with his wife, Tracy (Juliet Rylance), and their two children Ashley (Clare Foley) and Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario). Ellison uses the murders as the basis for his new book. Supposedly, there were five members in the family, and one of the children went missing after the murders.

Ellison finds a box in the attic, which contains a projector and several reels of Super 8 footage that are each labeled as if innocent home movies. He watches the films, all depicting families murdered in various ways, including having their throats slit in bed (Sleepy Time), an arson (BBQ), being drowned in their pool (Pool Party), and the hanging that opened the movie (Hanging Out). The drowning one proves especially disturbing for him, as he sees a dark figure with a demonic face. Upon seeing this figure, strange things begin happening around the house. Ellison continues to observe the films, and discovers strange things in them, such as a strange symbol painted near the murders, and the demonic figure, which begins to show up in every film. He calls a deputy (James Ransone) to help him find the location of these murders. After going through the images, the deputy refers him to a religion/cult college professor, Jonas (Vincent D'Onofrio), to decipher the symbol in the films. Jonas tells Ellison that the symbol is that of a Pagan deity named Bagul, who was known as an eater of children's souls. One night, Ellison hears the film projector running and goes up to the attic.

He finds five children (all of whom were the missing from each family after they were murdered) watching one of the films. When Bagul suddenly appears in front of him, Ellison falls from the attic. Having had enough, he burns the projector and the film and moves out with his family. Upon returning to their old house, he goes into the attic and finds the box containing the projector and film, completely unharmed. However, there is a new item inside: an envelope with "extended endings." Within that, Ellison finds that after each murder took place, the missing child would come onscreen, revealing them to be the murderers, and then disappear.

Professor Jonas tells Ellison that Bagul would supposedly appear in images, which acted as portals between his realm and the mortal realm. The deputy explains to Ellison that he discovered a chain in the murders. Each of the families that were murdered lived in a house where a murder took place before they moved to another house where the next murder would happen and so on. After learning that Ellison and his family moved, the deputy tells him that he's only continuing the chain by moving to a different house. Ellison suddenly finds glowing green liquid inside his coffee, along with a note from his daughter, and loses consciousness.

Upon waking, he finds himself, his wife and son bound and gagged. Ashley walks in, carrying an axe and a Super 8 camera. She then documents the grisly murders of her father, mother, and brother, and paints the walls in their blood, with several childish images such as unicorns, cats and dogs . She then goes to the projector and plays the film she just took, revealing the children in the hallway. Upon Bagul's appearance, the children run away. Bagul picks up Ashley and walks into the film with her.