Sinister: One of the creepiest movies I have ever seen.

Rating: 10/10 (9 June 2013)

I went to watch Sinister with high expectations and left shivering as I expected. I went in a group of 6 but Sinister didn't have the effect on them that it had on myself. I am a 16 year old student who studies visual effects so I gained a lot of inspiration from this film. I really did not expect it to be so good and after watching it am totally impressed. The sound effects are amazing and the special effects were exceptional. The opening of the film is particularly disturbing— the movie begins with the family hanging murder, which sets an unsettling tone for the rest of the film. The highlight however is the use of the 8mm films. Sinister is in love with the idea of film, rather than the common DVD or VHS tapes we are treated to super 8 films instead which I have never seen in any other film before. Another way 'Sinister' differs from most modern horror movies is that it doesn't show the audience all of the super 8 films at once but drills into their heads that every time they hear the projector start up something unusual and disturbing is going to happen which sustains the tension throughout.
As the film progresses and our character Ellison discovers more and more unusual home movies the plot gradually unravels, twisting your mind as you try to fit together the pieces if the available possible endings. The most memorable parts of the movie was the eerie atmosphere and silence during most of the home movie analysis, which made people viewing this in the cinema feel uneasy at the time as they felt like they were in the shoes of Ellison solving this gruesome case. The tension was always rising as there were many silent moments with strange goings on with Ellison unaware of how serious the case actually was. It felt like watching an old fashioned horror movie with the long periods of silence combined with modern day special effect scares.
I would totally recommend Sinister to any lover of horror and give it a 9/10, it would have been a 10 but the scene where Ellison and his wife were arguing caused giggles in the cinema due to it being a reasonably poor scene.