The start of the annual Halloween horror movies started last weekend with the release of Sinister.
The movie tells the story of a true crime novelist (Ethan Hawke) who, in order to write his new novel, moves his family to a town where a family was brutally murdered. In the house he moves them into, he discovers a box of home movies up in the attic. Once he starts watching the films he is totally disturbed by the images he is witnessing. It turns out that the murder he is investigating was committed by a serial killer who has actually filmed all of the families he killed as well as the actual hideous murders. To make matters even worse the killer seems to be some kind of supernatural spirit that is visible in each of the films. After watching the first film, strange happenings start to take place in the house, and the novelists’ family is taken through a nightmarish experience. The nightmares get worse with each film he views.
When I initially saw the trailer for this film I was really excited to see this movie. It looked really creepy, scary, and it definitely caught my interest. Now that I’ve seen the film I am slightly disappointed. It’s not the fact that it’s not scary enough, or doesn’t have good shock value scenes; all of that is there. The story is really good, and it is very creepy, suspenseful and has some really good scare moments. What I really didn’t like is the way it ended. Now, I’m not saying the ending is a complete loss, it does have an unexpected twist at the end. I didn’t see it coming, but it could have been made a lot better. I feel that the killer could have been used more than he was.
The trailer leads you to believe that he is a gruesome looking phantom, which he is I might add. The type of character that as a viewer you expect to see more of. The effects were great, the story is fast paced, and keeps your interest throughout the film. Hopefully, this first movie leads to a sequel that will make more use of the supernatural character, a lot more than he was used in this one.
I give this film 2 frights out of 4. It’s a good start to the Halloween holiday fright fest, that will continue for the next two weeks or so. The movie ran for 1 hour and 50 minutes. It was rated R for disturbing violent images and some terror. It was written by Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill. It was directed by Scott Derrickson. The movie was distributed by Summit Entertainment LLC.
Sometimes it best not to be so curious when you find things that don’t belong to you. – Ezo
Next movie review: Paranormal Activity 4
