Finally, some real horror

Rating: 8/10 (23 November 2012)

With posters and trailers promoting SINISTER as a movie from the producers of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, I had a lot of doubts about it, so many in fact that I decided to skip the theatrical release and just wait for the DVD. I skipped it, expecting the movie to be a complete dud as PARANORMAL was for me (there is no way you can justify video camera footage as horror) but I was gravely mistaken. What I got instead was a horror movie that actually worked because it was done right.
The story is relatively simple; a father on his way to writing a new book finds some home movies stashed up in the attic of his family's new house and said home movies have a lot of dark secrets contained in them which unleash an indescribable horror. Minus the whole part where the evil is unleashed through some old film reels, the plot is something that's been repeated in horror movies ever since something like EVIL DEAD. Even the scares are old fashioned, relying on genre staples (creepy kids, shock value, etc.) and a couple of high pitched chords played at the right moment to deliver the impact.
But these are not flaws at all; in fact, these are what made SINISTER a good horror movie. The thing with SINISTER is that it forgoes all of the new genre tropes that pretty much murdered the genre and opts to go back to old school horror tactics to deliver one of the best horror movies I've seen in recent memory. Even if some parts were predictable, the film never let up on the tension it managed to build up right from the start guaranteeing any scare (predicted or otherwise) to be a shocker.
For anyone who wants a good scare, check out SINISTER. It's a great addition to any horror movie collection as it goes back to genre roots, picks every single good bit that made horror movies the way they were in the day and delivers a good horror movie experience reminiscent of older horror movies while keeping things fresh for the new generation. If you've grown sick of the new "horror" meant for children that's produced en masse these days, look no further and pick up SINISTER.
I don't know how and why it took this long for the horror movie genre to recover but I am grateful to the crew behind SINISTER for reminding me why I fell in love with the genre. By the looks of things, the horror movie genre is going back to what made it great with some pretty interesting entries coming out next year (the EVIL DEAD remake looks promising; watch the trailer) and I guess it's thanks to an old school movie like SINISTER doing well at the box office. I'm thankful to SINISTER for reviving my love for the horror genre just when things were getting murky. I'll definitely be waiting for what these guys will be coming out with next.