Sinister – a Nightmarish Experience of Horror

SINISTER is the new thriller from the producer of the Paranormal Activity films and the writer-director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Ethan Hawke plays Ellison Oswalt, a true crime novelist who moves his family to town where a ritualistic hanging occurred and into the house where the victims lived and died. This movie revolves around Ellison and his discovery of a box of disturbing home movies that plunge his family into a nightmarish experience of horror.

Sinister movie image 9. Copyright(c) Summit Entertainment

While Sinister offers more than a few traditional horror movie moments where a normal person would turn on the lights and avoid the creepy attic, Ellison responded to enough of these situations in a way that I would to keep a reasonable air of reality. Creepy home movies show up in your house? Burn them. Your son is having too many night terrors? Move. For me, the letdown occurred when the movie transitioned from a potential real life horror story into a paranormal realm and ended without the closure I had been anticipating throughout the movie.

Sinister had enough plot twists and turns to keep me interested throughout but it was the use of silence, 8 mm film reels playing on a projector, and a haunting horror movie music score by Christopher Young that created an air of psychological tension from start to finish.