2012 American film
Sinister is a 2012 supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill. It follows true-crime writer Ellison (Ethan Hawke) as he discovers a box of home movies that put his family in danger. The film employs "found footage" along with traditional cinematography.[1] Premiered at the SXSW festival, Sinister is scheduled to release in the United States on October 12, 2012.
Plot
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 Osborne (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.
The final shot shows the box of film in the attic of the Osborne house, this time with a new canister that reads "House painting '12".
Production
Shooting for Sinister began in fall of 2011, with Ethan Hawke and Juliet Rylance signing on to star in the film.[2]
Release
First revealed at the SXSW festival in the United States, Sinister premiered in the United Kingdom at the London FrightFest and in Spain at the Sitges Film Festival.[3][4]
Reception
Early reviews for Sinister have been positive, with Variety praising the movie as "the sort of tale that would paralyze kids' psyches".[5] Film.com stated that Sinister was a "deeply frightening horror film that takes its obligation to alarm very seriously".[6]
As of October 5, 2012, the film has an 84% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 21 reviews.[7] Criticisms are minor: CraveOnline called the film "solid" but remarked that the film "doesn't quite go to the next level that gets me like an Insidious",[8] and IGN praised the film's story while criticizing some of Sinister's "scream-out-loud moments" as lazy.[9]
Ryan Lambie of Den of Geek wrote,
For the most part, Sinister is about its protagonist's growing obsession. Director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still) appears to be deeply influenced not just by the horror genre (most obviously The Shining) [but also] by such films as Michael Mann's Manhunter, Joel Schumacher's 8mm, and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation. Like the main characters of those films, Ellison becomes consumed by a mystery, and spends long periods of time engrossed in the pursuit of the truth – like us, he's repulsed by what he sees, but can't quite bring himself to look away.[10]
Lambie, rating the movie 3 of 5 stars, says that despite its "faults, there's something undeniably powerful about Sinister. Hawke's performance holds the screen through its more hackneyed moments, and it's the scenes where it's just him, a projector, and a few feet of hideous 8mm footage where the movie truly convinces. And while its scares are frequently cheap, it's also difficult to deny that Sinister sometimes manages to inspire moments of palpable dread." The reviewer for Time Out London granted only 2 out of 5 stars, saying, "This so-so, occasionally effective horror film combines found-footage creepiness and haunted-house scares – but is stronger on mood than story."[11]
Reviewer Garry McConnachie of Scotland's Daily Record rated the film 4 of 5 stars, saying, "this is how Hollywood horror should be done... Sinister covers all its bases with aplomb."[12]
