Sinister (B)

"Once you see him, nothing can save you."

My friend Paul and I were talking about horror films the other day, and he endorsed Sinister. I hadn't seen it when it made its theatrical run, but the premise was interesting. After my friend's praise, I decided I'd rent it through Amazon and see what the fuss was about. While I wasn't blown away by Sinister, it's certainly entertaining, creepy, and well-acted.

Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) is a has-been true crime author. After the amazing success of his first book, Kentucky Blood, his star has dimmed. His next two books flopped, with one of them contributing somehow to a killer going free. He's determined to write his next masterpiece so that he can reap the rewards that come with another runaway success--fame and fortune. Especially fortune.

The film opens with a snippet from a home movie on super 8. Four people, bound and hooded, are slowly killed as they hang in a tree. As the rough footage ends, Ellison's story begins. He and his family have moved to a house in Pennsylvania and are unloading the moving truck. Though Ellison is mum on the topic to his wife, Tracy (Juliet Rylance), we learn that the house they're moving into is the same house where the murders took place. In total, four family members were killed, with the fifth--a little girl named Stephanie--missing and presumed dead.

While stowing stuff in the home's attic, Ellison finds a mysterious box that was apparently left behind. Inside the box is a super eight projector, as well as several film reels. The reels have innocuous names--"Pool Party," "BBQ," "Lawn Work," Sleepytime," and "Family Hanging Out"--and are dated from 1966 to 2011, a span of forty-five years. He takes the films and projector to his office and begins to view them, one by one, and discovers they each detail the graphic murder of a different family.

All he really needs is some popcorn and a Coke.

Shaken by the videos, but unable to help himself, Ellison begins to investigate. As he does so, his son, Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario), begins to experience night terrors, something the boy suffered when he was much younger. Other strange events take place, mostly while Ellison works through the night. He begins to piece more and more clues together, and with the help of a local deputy/fanboy (James Ransone), light is shed on even more details concerning the other four murders.

Sinister is a tense film, creepy at several points, and it takes a couple of unexpected turns along the way. Even with the depictions of several murders, the content isn't particularly graphic. Despite the movie's R rating, much of the gore is implied. I suspected the film's twist about half the way through, but the validation of my suspicions at the end wasn't unpleasant. Though not a found-footage film in its own right, the film reels certainly add that element to the overall narrative.

There isn't a bad actor in the bunch here. Ethan Hawke is, as always, excellent, and his character motivations are solid. As he slowly becomes more and more unhinged by the events that take place, he remains a human being rather than a caricature. Juliet Rylance is also very good, and James Ransone's unnamed deputy ("Deputy So and So") adds a little brevity to Sinister's serious tone. An uncredited appearance by Vincent D'Onofrio was something of a surprise, too, given I had no idea it was him.

Family Hanging Out, '11

If I had one complaint about Sinister, it's the movie's constant darkness. Ellison often moves through the house, never turning on a single light, in search of an alleged intruder. Though I expect it was meant to add to the creepy factor, the lack of visibility really annoyed me at times. Watching someone walk through the dark once in a while is one thing, but it started to feel overused towards the middle of the film.

Sinister is a solid supernatural horror flick with a great cast. Though the story is somewhat derivative, it has a couple of unique twists that set it apart from similar movies.