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Ethan Hawke
ViJuliet Rylance
Michael Hall D'Addario
Clare Foley
James Ransone
Victoria Leigh

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A true-crime novelist seeks clues behind the murder of the family who inhabited the house he and his family just moved into. Using found footage he begins to unravel the truth, but what he discovers puts his family in danger. -- Chris Kavan

03/21/2013 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

A loosely written clumsy horror film

Derrickson does the treatment a mishap. I was never hooked for the film. Just took a try. Literally the cumbersome plot does not make sense. The boogie man is neither haunting nor threatening. Sinister is a wooden spoon according to me. Ethan Hawke is not appealing. He can do really better than this. Derrickson takes the film to the trash.

An aspiring writer along with his family goes for a change from his house. He finds some rare tapes recorded in super 8. The film loses track as it progresses. Then, when things get tight, film lacks focus and gets to the junk yard. The climax is somewhat surprising, and does have a mixed feeling to me. Sinister works only for the video footages of super 8 camera. It has weakness all over. The drama gets boring. The lengthy conversations saturate th...

Rating of
1/4 

02/18/2013 (1 of 1 found this helpful)

It Leaves a (Sinister) Impression

I consider myself a horror fan, and while I enjoy the whole blood and guys angle now and then, I much prefer the films that are more about atmosphere and digging down into the recesses of your mind rather than some guy in a mask killing indiscriminately. Sinister is one of those films that will get under your skin and linger - and while the payoff is not quite as good as the buildup, it's still one of the best horror films to come out in awhile.

We open on a shot of a family of four, captured on video, as they are hung from a tree. We then join true crime novelist Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) and his family as they move into a new house. It seems times aren't so good for Oswalt after his runaway first novel, Kentucky Blood, hit it big, he hasn't been able to write a worthy followup and...

Rating of
3/4 

12/03/2012 (1 of 1 found this helpful)

Trailer is scarier than the actual product!!

I guess seeing this in the theatre up on the big screen would make this more scary then it was (I was priveledged enough to see a home copy that was lent to me by a freind of mine who gets screeners sent to him) However that being said i would have to say over all the film itself was creepy but i guess i dont scare that easily as i only jumped once or twice (Unlike movies like the Paranormal films where you can find me plastered to the ceiling) the scariest thing about this flick was the soundtrack...plan on looking for a copy of this to buy and play on the next Halloween!

I also have to mention that the storyline here was one of the creepiest i have seen in a while... Ethan Hawke portrays true crime novelist Elison Oswalt who after having a run of bad books moves his family of 4 into...

Rating of
2/4 

10/30/2012 (1 of 1 found this helpful)

Sinister indeed

Upon further review I must give sinister a higher rating. No film this year (at least non-foreign) have given me such an intense creepiness that burrowed under my skin, and took me a day or so to shake. (Waking up in the middle of the night with my door mysteriously didn't help matters.) Is it a masterpiece? Not by a long shot, but it's so damn disturbing, thanks in part to one of the most intensely creepy sound tracks to come along since the The Ring. It also has some truly jarring scares, which are used sparingly. Ethan Hawke is great as a struggling true-crime writer (reminding me of Stephen King.) It's only in the last 15 or so minutes that the film loses steam. Once the mystery is gone, so is the tension. But kudos to Scott Derickson, because despite the faults, he still makes it so ...

Rating of
3/4