MOVIE REVIEW - Sinister

Halloween is here again and time for the scary movies, and this week it's Sinister. Which actually is rather intense.

To start with, Sinister starts out with a real advantage by casting Ethan Hawke, a real good veteran actor in the lead.  Generally these flicks live with no-names, or has been's.  This is a script that is far better than most Halloween time movies and remembers what in real life really scares you.   So right off the bat, this has a leg or two up.

Sinister is a relatively simple story of a struggling young writer (Hawke) and his family who move into a new house in a new town so the writer can get close to the story he is working on.  He writes real life murder stories and does much research.  This new house is the center of an entire family's murder years ago.   He wants to learn as much about the case as possible.   Turns out that this house is a bit haunted, or something.  In any case something is just not right, and it seems he and his family could be in danger.

He runs across this old box of home Super 8 movies that show numerous gruesome murders of entire families from all over the country.  He becomes obsessed with the films and they start to play with his head.  Then things start to go bump in the night, and he tries to get to the bottom of the whole thing.  Is he cracking up?  Or is there real terror around them?  Is there something supernatural under foot?

Sinister is a pretty intense, and at times a scary movie.  What this movie does very well, is that this is not a slasher movie.   But there are some rather disturbing images for sure.  And they are so real, they could be very disturbing to people too young to see this.   So keep that in mind.   But there is virtually no blood, or extreme violence and that makes this movie far scarier than a bunch of fake blood.  What is intense here is the suspense, and the situations our characters find themselves in.   A lot of this movie is Hawke doing simply silent acting, and he is very good.

This is not a special effects fest at all.   It is a good script, and preys on what would frighten you.  Yes, there is some silliness to it at times.  Like why he never turns a light on at 3 AM when the terror sets in.  But this is not the first movie to do that.  One thing about this movie is that there is minimal predictability to it.  And that is its strength.  It does not make everything crystal clear, but that's not a deal breaker. It does keep you guessing.    And the door is open for Sinister to roll on next year if they choose.

Sinister.   For what it is, well done.