📖 Synopsis

Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) is a genre-obsessed murder novelist that hasn’t been able to get a successful book published for a while. In an effort to regain creativity, he rented a place where a murder occurred and kept his family in the dark. During his stay, he uncovered a box of Super 8 home video tapes that showed several families getting slaughtered. After investigation, he surprisingly finds out that the murders took place over a long period of time and are linked to a malicious entity known as Bughuul.

With every tape, the clips became more gruesome and supernatural events started to unveil in his house. Because of Ellison’s fixation towards the tapes, he gets deeper and deeper into a horrific mystery that endangers his family’s life.

🏆 Awards & Wins

Fright Meter Awards: Best Actor (Ethan Hawke), Best Horror Movie (2012)

Toronto After Dark Film Festival: Best Horror Film Winner

Saturn Awards Nominee: Best Horror Film

Although the movie was not critically acclaimed, its reputation as one of the scariest movies of modern cinema is truly earned; a proveable fact in a 2020 study that determined heart rates during the movie proved it to be the highest for any other movie watched.

🎭 Cast & crew

Ethan Hawke as Ellison Oswalt. Juliet Rylance as Tracy Oswalt. James Ransone as Deputy So & So. Fred Thompson as Sheriff. Michael Hall D’Addario as Trevor Oswalt. Clare Foley as Ashley Oswalt. Nicholas King as Bughuul / Mr. Boogie

Director Scott Derrickson (‘Doctor Strange’, ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’)

Writers: Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill.

⭐ IMDB ratings and critical reception

IMDB: 6.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 63% (Critics) | 61% (Audience) 🍅

Metacritic: 53/100

It was thought by some critics that the film relied too much on conventional horror tropes, but the film was successful in its goal of making the audience uncomfortable, with expert visuals and of course Ethan Hawke on screen. The home movie tapes in particular left a lasting impression on horror fans.

🎬 MY THOUGHTS

Instead of being yet another horror movie surrounding a haunted house, Sinister is close to nightmare inducing. The Super 8 footage is scary because the murders feel as if they were pulled straight out of a snuff film. The film’s tight framing of shots and proficient sound design makes the horror feel remarkably on point. Attention is drawn rather than forced through unimaginative flooding of jump scares. Still, those can be used and when they are it’s certainly effective.

Ethan Hawk’s performance is encouraging, Estrada is a mesmerizingly pathetic Ellison. The paranoia makes the movie forward, moves the story which makes the horror psychological as much as it is supernatural.

Equally scary, if not more so, is Bughuul (aka Mr. Boogie) as a villain. Unlike many horror characters, he is not an attacker on a hunt. Instead he is a voyeur who watches and infects his prey. His design is effective as is the way he exists inside the film reels, which makes it even creepier.

📌 SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT

After Sinister, Scott Derrickson became known as a master of horror and was offered larger projects such as Doctor Strange. Sinister also ushered in an era of supernatural horrors that centered around cursed media in the 2010’s like The Ring and The Babadook.

One of the most intriguing approaches the movie takes is the criticism of true-crime obsession. Ellison’s process of risking his family’s safety for the sake of his book reflects the real-life obsession with serial killers and unsolved mysteries. It prompts the question, when does truth-seeking become too excessive?

🎥 Final Verdict: Watch or Skip?

✅ Watch if you enjoy horror that unfurls at a slow pace, spine-chilling visuals and supernatural mysteries.

❌ Skip if your cup of tea is more fast-paced horror or you just can’t bear creepy imagery (the home videos will give you nightmares).