Movie Review: Sinister

As generic horror goes, Sinister does what it's supposed to, but don't expect originality or depth here.

Elison (played by Ethan Hawke)-- a true crime author trying to revive his career-- moves into a house where a family was previously murdered, a case that he's investigating for his next book. He does this without telling his wife, Tracy, (played by Juliet Rylance) and children (Michael Hall D'Addario and Clare Foley). He is assisted later on by an unnamed Sheriff's deputy, played in weird, Ed-Norton fashion by James Ransone, whose creepy performance in otherwise non-scary interludes keeps you on your toes. Political junkies might like it when Fred Dalton Thompson shows up to play a very Fred Dalton Thompson role. (I'm so glad he's in this movie and not president. That would be scary.)



It doesn't take long for Elison to find a box of Super 8 films in the attic, which turn out to be snuff movies of the house's previous inhabitants and several other families. 

I can't fault the acting in this at all. Hawke especially carries the movie in scene after scene where there are creepy things about, but no other other characters to play off of. The way he comes apart delivers all the power it should. He and Rylance have a quarrel scene which is convincing, until the writer blows it at the end.

And here you get into some of the troubles. The movie is not original, and the stupid things horror characters always do or don't do-- to keep themselves in harms way for the writer's benefit-- are all done here, especially by Hawke's character, Elison.

In any horror movie about a house since the 1950s, why do the people stay long after its obvious they're up against something hostile, powerful and supernatural? Something that plays by rules they don't know? Why do the characters explain it away constantly, not even considering getting into a safer environment so they could think straight? I mean, I would only have to get up once to a projector running the creepiest parts of a snuff movies before leaving would be my only option. We're hit over the head with this same stupidity in horror movie after horror movie. It's not a convention, either. It's lazy writing and a cliche. 

In all fairness, this movie tries to do something original with it, but far too late. Besides, by playing a variation on a plotting error, the filmmakers presume to enshrine a screw-up-- one they're too lazy to correct-- as a trope or a convention. It's still just an embarrassment. It's like they're dressing shit in a suit and putting it on a pedestal.

Besides unrealistically idiotic about self-preservation, Elison is unlikeable in general. He's dishonest with his wife, he endangers her and his children, he's obsessed with recapturing his fame. Worse, he's narcissistic as hell, watching videos of himself being interviewed in his heyday. You would think a narcissist would know to save his own life at least.

Moreover, the character doesn't really do anything except get in over his head. He doesn't find one bit of important information that isn't handed to him. He spends half the movie looking baffled, walking through his dark house, never looking the right direction, and never doing the first sensible thing, like turning on a light.

Here we get into a problem with the directing. I know a director wants a dark, atmospheric house for horror. However, this house is very standard, vanilla-issue, ranch-style suburban. It's connected to the grid. Yet early on, they have dinner in a room so dark you'd think they'd invited their new neighbors, the Mole family. Yes, I understand, maybe they didn't have the lights moved in yet, or the electricity on, or whatever. Except that the whole house is like that all the time thereafter. Even in daylight, it never rises a shade above doomy gloomy. When something goes bump, as it often does, Elison grabs a little flashlight, instead of going for the light switch, making him look even dumber.

Stanley Kubrick proved that you can have horror in bright lights.You don't make the whole modern world inexplicably dark, not scene after scene, because you need it to make your horror work.

I will give credit: Hawke still sells it. The film has enough chilling moments, and if you don't expect anything original, or you prefer standard horror for Halloween, it does its work. It's about as good as haunted housing. The scene at the end is effective and creepy, and-- in a gruesome way-- even beautiful. My compliments to the art designer.

Don't think about it too much, and it works until the movie's over. It might help to be a little inebriated or stoned while viewing, and that's not an endorsement of drugs or alcohol.