Sinister

My Grade:  B+

When a trailer freaks you out, there’s a good chance that the film that trailer advertises will freak you out.  Sometimes that’s not the case; but, with Sinister, it is.  Ethan Hawke (Training Day) takes the lead in this one and he puts on a good show.  Obviously, in a horror film, it’s not really about the acting; but having a strong lead certainly helps the overall effect of the film.  If you have some guy/girl in there that can’t look scared to save their life... well I don’t have to tell you that it would suck (I guess I just did though).

Sinister is rather inventive, though.  It seems like the stereotypical haunted house story:  a family moves into a house where gruesome murders occurred and they are haunted by some sort of evil spirit.  This is different though because it’s not really the house... it’s the super 8 films found in the attic and, more specifically, the creepy guy in those films.  I do have a problem with this film’s use of the attic, though.  Not because it’s not terrifying, but it’s so over done.  When are people in horror films going to learn to not get houses with creepy attics?

But the scares extend beyond the attic.  There are plenty of jump scenes that are relatively cheap scares, but will definitely make you gasp.  Also (as seen in the trailers) the “Bagul” guy is simply a terrifying sight.  You only see some of him in the trailers, but when you see the film, he may haunt your dreams for a few nights to come.

As for the story that supports the scariness, it’s alright.  A writer who writes true crime novels needs a big hit.  It’s been ten years since his best seller and he wants to be back on top.  He wants it so bad that he somewhat neglects his family.  So maybe he deserves to get haunted... who knows.  There is a pretty strong emotional scene between him and his wife.

The most interesting thing about this film is the message it seems to try and get across.  It seems to call film itself evil.  More metaphorically, film as an art form.  It especially focuses on the way films affect children.  I don’t want to get too far into it because I don’t want to ruin anything and people seem to hate spoiler alerts.

The problem I have with this film is how they explain the supernatural stuff... or don’t really explain it.  This is a tough thing to write about without spoiling the film so I will go about this gingerly.  Ellison (Ethan Hawke) consults a professor of occult studies when things start becoming weird.  Through this professor, we find out facts about the supernatural stuff involving Bagul (the demon thing that seems to be messing with Ellison’s family).  The professor explains it all as if it’s myth but all those myths happen to be coming true in Ellison’s research.  That’s a fine way to explain stuff, but they don’t explain a few key things:  how it all started and what their son’s night terrors have to do with anything.  It feels like some things that happen in the house are just to add some scares and don’t actually fit with the occult things that go on.

Overall, the scares are pretty constant and some are quite intense but not all of them follow the occult portion of the narrative.  Also, more explanation of how this Bagul thing got started would be nice.  But the film does benefit from strong acting and good scares-to-downtime ratio.  But I will be able to sleep again.