Typical Horror Film

Rating: 3/10 (20 August 2015)

For the longest time I'd heard that Sinister was one of the best horror movies out there. Rumors abound of a horror film that returns to bone chilling terror, but I'd heard that so many times before only to be met with disappointment that I decided to give it a pass. While seeing another film at the theater I saw that Sinister was getting ready to produce a sequel and, looking back into the film, saw it had pretty good reviews and still with mentions of how truly scary a film it was and so decided to give it a watch.
Ellison Oswalt is a true crime writer who hasn't had a decent book in a decade. He's struggling to find a new idea that will make him boatloads of cash and set him and his family on the right financial track. Ellison moves his family into a new home in a new town in order to research his new novel about the brutal murder of a family and the child that went missing in the aftermath. To really get into his research Ellison moves his family into the same home where the murder took place something he fails to mention. Ellison discovers a recording of the crime and others on old film reels and sets out to uncover the truth behind the killings.
Now this is all interesting and compelling at first and to be fair the film actually did hook me in with its opening scene, maybe one of the best I've ever seen in a horror film, and its intriguing mystery. Unfortunately as soon as the supernatural elements take hold the movie really began to fall apart and the story begins to make less and less sense especially as the killer is revealed to be a child eating deity and not a human killer as the movie at first wants us to believe. Elliot is an interesting character, but does very little spending much of his time watching the film reels, arguing with his wife, or wandering around his house in the dark with a baseball bat as the movie tries to figure out what it should do next.
That's not to say the movie doesn't have its moments. Ethan Hawke does a good job as a father who slowly loses himself in alcohol as he obsesses over his book and the murders. I found the footage of the murders to be quite chilling and the music accompanying the burning is especially creepy.
Aside from the creepy movie reels I didn't find the movie in the least bit scary. I found it slow, repetitive, predictable, and the ending was not at all shocking, but came off as typical horror movie cliché.
In the end Sinister presents an interesting idea but it goes nowhere. It seems the writers had an idea for some found snuff films and didn't quite know where to go from there.