Sinister (2012)

Halloween is over but the horror keeps on coming. I decided to hold off this review, I already had to cancel, delay and rearrange some reviews ('Osombie' being one of them, may get it out this month).

Moving on we come across Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), a true crime writer, as he moves his family into the house which belonged to a family where all but one were murdered in the back yard (They were hung on the tree), the one that wasn't murdered has disappeared. Oswalt finds a box of old films in the attic, and finds that the old films are of murders where all but one child of a family are killed. He also finds Mr. Boogie (Nicholas King) in the films, and that's when things start getting creepy.

Kind of.

See, here's the thing that I have to address first and foremost. Well, I don't have to I feel like I do. I remember the advertising for this film here in the UK, and from word of mouth, that this film was suppose to be the scariest of the year. That it was suppose to be the scariest film for a very long time. It wasn't. It really wasn't. The first third of the film just dragged on and on, it was just so boring. And it wasn't because there weren't any scares, oh no, I liked the approach this film took, but, the first third of the film really did drag this film down. Primarily because the film tried to make everything, like the film titles suggests, sinister. It was like "Ooooo, wind blowing through the trees. Sinister", or "Ooooo, a box. Sinister".

As it turns out, this film was aiming to use kids to scare the audience. And let's be fair, kids are scary. They're meant to be pure and innocent, they're not meant to be creepy and evil. And, to be fair, this film did use that to great effect at one point. When Oswalt is out in the yard in the middle of the night in the rain, the film cuts to the missing children standing behind Oswalt. This was a really good shot, with the kids hidden in the darkness just standing there, it really does send chills down your spine.

However, you just can't take the kids seriously when, the next time you see them, they're running around in slow motion behind Oswalt so he can't see them. That ruined any fear factor they had in this film, they were effectively doing "Ha ha, you can't see or hear me, even if you were looking at us. That's scary! Apparently". You want to know how to make kids really scary? Go see 'The Woman in Black (2012)', and that film had a lower age rating.

And then, there's Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario, who I'll come back to later) and his night terrors, which gives us, probably the first attempt at being scary. Trevor bending backwards from a box and screaming at the audience. Okay, I briefly mentioned this in my 'The Woman in Black' and slightly expanded upon it in my 'The Devil Within' reviews back in March, but now I'm going to go into a little more detail. THIS ISN'T SCARY. Screaming at the camera is quite possibly the worst, tackiest, cheap and downright laziest tactic to try and scare the audience. Imagine someone just screaming in your face, nonstop for, Hell, ten seconds. Annoyed? That's the exact same feeling you get from the "scream-out-loud" moments, and I am growing increasingly frustrated that more and more so called 'horror' films are using this tactic.

And I do have to query why Ellison feels it is best to research his book AT NIGHT. The first film I can understand, he didn't realise that it had the murders on the tapes. BUT, then to continue watching the snuff films, again, AT NIGHT. Even if he hadn't come across the films, researching the gruesome murders in a dark room in the middle of the night is going to give you nightmares. And even better, doing it during the day when the kids are out, makes it more likely that they don't find out and keep your wife happy. Really, there are only two genuine scare in this film, one you saw coming as it was one of the focal points of the trailers, the other being a matter of timing on one of the snuff films.

Actually, speaking of the wife, Tracey (Juliet Rylance), she is quite possibly the stupidest character I have ever seen. Okay, maybe not the stupidest, but pretty damn close. Okay, I don't blame her for being angry with Oswalt for not telling her that they just moved into the murder house (Though really she should have seen it when Oswalt said that they hadn't moved into a place a few houses away), it's the way she finds out, namely through her kids, as they keep finding out details. And here's the thing, THEY NEVER QUESTION HOW THE KIDS LEARN THESE THINGS. I'm serious, not once did Oswalt or Tracey ask how their son and daughter learnt about the murders. Hell, Ashley (Clare Foley) calls one of the missing children BY NAME, something which Oswalt has never mentioned, and they never question how she knows her name! MORONS!

Oswalt himself, is a pretty decent character, he's the one we most spend time with, so we do get attached to him. Even if he is an idiot and a jerk sometimes. The Sheriff (Fred Dalton Thompson), I really didn't like him. Namely because he came off as a jackass straight away, giving Oswalt grief for something he had said in a previous book. Something about the police being incompetent, which is fair, but really, show rather than tell. The only character I thought was any good was Deputy So-And-So (James Ransome), a name which became a running gag as Oswalt tried to steal a joke from (the TV series) 'House' and listed him in his phone by his nickname. Deputy was really the only one to show different sides to his character, and he was actually smart.

With all that being said, the film isn't that bad. Yes the first third of the film was dull and uninteresting, but once Mr. Boogie started to actually appear in this film, it did pick up. It didn't play out as a traditional modern day horror film either, which was actually a nice change of pace. The acting is really good as well. From the adults anyway. I do have to give praise to Hawke who portrays his character who becomes so engrossed, so obsessed with his work, that it isn't until something drastic happens to him directly that he decides to quit. Ransome also gives a really good performance, he sort of portrays a Watson to Hawke's Holmes. They both have great chemistry together and can bounce off each other tremendously. Foley and D'Addario however gave less than adequate performances, with Foley playing a cliched kid who complains about having to move house. Although, I can see potential from both of them, it's just I found both of them annoying as Hell in this. Not Rohan Chand annoying though.

Like I said, this isn't a bad film, I can only guess that the film was aiming to creep the audience out instead of actually scaring them. And, as I mentioned, that does actually give the film a much better feel to it than other modern horrors. But, does it really deserve the title 'Best Horror Film Ever/of the Decade'? No. No it doesn't. The first third does not put you in the mood to be scared, and the scares are too predictable and cliched. I won't say "It's awful", but I'm not going to say "It's good" either.



SPOILERS
The ending is also too predictable. After seeing Mr. Boogie in the snuff films for the first time, you realise he's not filming, which makes you think "Hmm, who is filming the murders the...oh".