This film is Sinister!

Rating: 8/10 (14 February 2013)

Scott Derrickson's Sinister gives us confusion with an old fashion detective twist. Ethan Hawke delivers a stellar performance in this latest title Sinister.
We start out this wonder macabre film with us witnessing a family getting hanged, then we move onto a family moving in to a new house where the hanging took place.
At first glance I thought this would be the traditional writer/detective style film, as we move along with Ethan Hawke's character I thought this is going to be one of those "who done it?" type films.
I was wrong, Ethan Hawke brings us through a dark portal where we don't know what is real or I should say unreality and not of this world. We all learn as the film moves on that this maybe a serial killer at work. But I just wondered throughout the film why in 1998, in which year one of the murders took place why this was being filmed on 8mm? I guess it was because that's when all these murders started, when most people had an 8mm video camera at their dispose starting in the 1960's, where all these murders began, or maybe it's because that's when home movies started to become popular. Your guess is as good as mine.
In this paranormal film I find there were plenty of scares, not really by the ghosts or demons, but by the dark atmosphere of the film, and also by it's strange sounding score, it also uses a lot of imagery to get that aspect across to it's audience. I really love this film, but in the same thought, it is a very dark psychological film. I have some mixed feelings, but all good feelings about the style of this film, it is a true noir horror, with a unhappy ending. Mr.Derricksons used a lot of old school camera technique's not really seen in new films. The dead children that appear had a mix of good make up and also great slow motion effects, which I haven't seen since the film "The Cell" It has an ending being positive or negative, it could go either way.
The only thing that annoyed me about this film is the very end when Mr. Boogie flashed in front of us before the credits rolled. I thought that was kind of immature for the director to do such a thing, it wasn't scary, and felt kind of cheap to try and squeeze in that one last scare. They should of left it as is, with the camera panning out on the box of "Home Movies", that would of been much classier. Overall a very entertaining watch.