Sinister, It Is.

     Not many movies are able to incorporate all aspects of horror in a scary movie as well as a recent movie, Sinister. The plot incorporates elements of mystery, horror, and suspense to give you the perfect nightmare. With mysterious serial killings, creepy little children who “shush” the audience, and a haunted house I was hooked the entire movie. I’m a Halloween fanatic and live for scary movies to get me in the mood. The freakier the better, and Sinister definitely delivered.

     The movie starts off simply enough, as a normal family moves into a house, so that the father Ellison, (Ethan Hawke) can write his second true crime novel. Little does the family know, but they have actually moved into the house in which one of the grisly family killings took place. Ellison discovers a box of Super 8 films that date back to the 60s. Each film depicts a normal family gathering and then switches to the next scene in which an unknown killer murders the family.

Ellison works the plot well as the frustrated writer who works relentlessly to solve the mystery and write the book that will seemingly fix all his families problems. He refuses to believe that something to starting to seem paranormal. But as Ellison’s children begin to act more and more strange; he and the audience feel a gripping sense of dread and terror.

With each new discovery of a film, I felt more and more unsettled. When Ellison finally believes something is wrong and decided to move his family back, I couldn’t even breathe. I knew that he wouldn’t be able to escape. The final end to the movie was horrifically disturbing and even if you could predict it, it would cause many a sleepless night.

While doing some research on the film, I came across an article about how this film uses the “found footage” idea in a new way. Usually, the “found footage” is anonymous and edited by an unknown source. Here, the horror lies in how the “found footage” is fragmented throughout the movie. You shiver and cover your eyes every time a film is shown and the short clips continue to haunt you the rest of the movie.

Overall, I highly recommend this movie and if you’re not big on horror than make this the one horror movie you see all year.