Sinister

I went to see the movie Sinister directed by Scott Derickson tonight, or as I like to call it, "What are you doing in the house still? [Insert Apple product placement.]"

Sinister is about a family that moves into the home of a family who was recently murdered. The family's father is a non-fiction crime book writer, and he is attempting to investigate the murder and kidnapping of the girl of the murdered family. The movie then chronicles the slow unveiling of the horrifying and dangerous circumstances around the family's murder, and how the father unwittingly puts his own family in the very same path of danger.

I give this movie a solid 4 out of 5 stars.

I've only recently begun to really get into the horror genre, and I really enjoy a good scare, however due to the fact that I am really good at predicting things before they happen in a movie, scary movies often don't hold much umph. Sinister was, while slightly predictable, very refreshing.

Pros:

• Originality
• Scare factor
• Just plain ... wrongness

Cons

• Slow beginning
• Awkward plot lines
• Product placement
• Slow buildup

Originality

Sinister tends to sway more towards a Paranormal Activity kind of plot line without dropping any chandeliers on your head. However, if you were dissapointed with the latest installment of Paranormal Activity (Paranormal Activity 4) as I was, Sinister is the refreshing glass of water that you need. The originality in Sinister is unparalleled with most movies I've seen in the last five years, and you'll be sinking deep into your seat trying to figure out the next step of the movie before it slaps itself across the screen. I was in love with the folklore and detail that went into this, and it's certainly something that I think audiences will appreciate.

Scare Factor

The blurb in the movie description says that it will literally scare your pants off, and if you're looking for something that is going to make you scream and jump out of your seat every five seconds, then you're looking at the wrong movie. However, what every good horror movie does (and needs) is a buildup. A good horror movie layers on the horror and layers it so high that by the end of the movie you are strung out by the pressure, and that's what Sinister does. Its horror is in the fact that Sinister is a pressure cooker with awful story lines that make you question your faith in humanity. It's a really good experience in an awful way.

Wrongness

Sinister was really hard to watch about two thirds of the way through due to the fact that it's really relateable. It's about a family who is struggling to live and are dealing with real problems, and it's about the murder of five other very real families and their gruesome deaths, and it's pretty hard. I would say as a trigger warning that this movie could potentially trigger an unpleasant reaction due to the simple nature of the movie.

Slow Beginning and Awkward Plot Lines

The very beginning scene of the movie is a shot of a family being murdered by hanging and it just pulls you in right away and you think, "Alright, we're gonna jumpstart this. Let's go." But that's about the most exciting scene in the movie for the next 25 minutes. You then must spend those minutes attempting to piece together the mysterious dialogue between the husband/writer, his wife, the cops, and his children, until you finally figure out that he's a writer who writes non-fiction novels about crimes, and he's investigating a crime in town but nobody really likes him because of this other book.

It's all very awkward and slow and difficult to put together, and I probably wouldn't have had I not read it in the description online. So then it seems that the writers attempt to make up for this awkwardness by then just literally throwing marital problems at you and yelling in your face that, "Our writer is a deep and troubled man! There's a moral to this story! Don't focus on fame and fortune; your family is right in front of you." Almost every five minutes we are confronted with a scene where the wife and husband fight about his priorities and how he only needs "one more best seller to make everything okay." After a while it becomes monotonous.

Slow Buildup

While I said the best part of the movie was the slow buildup and layering of the horror, it was also one of its worst parts. After the awkward beginning I was hoping that the scares would make up for it, and in the end (and in culmination) I believe it did. However, sitting in the dark room, anxious for the next scare, my anxiety turns into boredom quickly as I see that I'm in for another 15 minutes of this husband pacing around and montages of detective work.

Product Placement

All I'm going to say is that I'm pretty sure that if Apple could have invented a time machine, they would have gone back in time to invent the Super 8 just so that they could have one more Apple product in this movie.

Overall, I am going to say that I loved this movie. I'm sure with the cons involved it sounds like I barely made it through Sinister with my life, but I really really enjoyed it and found it worth the $8.50 I spent on it. Derickson brought together a great script and an even better product.