It's all in the details for both us and Ellison

Rating: 8/10 (20 February 2013)

Research and questioning are two of the most powerful activities a human being can partake in. Absorbing yourself in a story or a crime case is something that is just as powerful, as well. During the time of the tragic Aurora, Colorado theater shooting and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that absolutely tore the United States apart as a whole, you couldn't pry my fingers away from the keyboard or my face from the monitor. I never saw myself so in-tuned , captivated, disgusted, and riveted by a news story in all my life.
Thankfully, I never experience an obsession with a case or past events like the one our lead character Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) in Sinister immerses himself into. He is a consumed crime author, who wrote a successful book some years ago, and decides to leave his old home behind and take his wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance) and their two children Ashley (Clare Foley) and Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario) to live in an old, spacious home that was once the site of an unexplainable crime scene. The only one who knows this is Ellison, who is warned upon his arrival by the town deputy (James Ransone) that living here isn't smart, but he is so involved with his career as an author he doesn't listen.
Ellison begins to find old Super 8 films in the attic of the home, discovering that they're snuff films depicting various grisly murders and usually titled by an ambiguous event and date ("Sleep Time '98" is the name of one). His minor fascination turns wholly consuming, as he locks himself in his study, playing the films on a rickety old projector, desperately trying to uncover the mystery of the house. During this time, his children begin exhibiting the strangest of behaviors and his wife's tolerance and silence to his reclusive nature becomes unrelenting and maddening on her part.
Sinister opens on the precise foot, creepy, unnerving, and yes, terrifying. It shows Super 8 footage of four people, all standing below a tree, with nooses around their neck and hoods covering their faces before something cuts off one of the tree's limbs, which acts as a counterweight, successfully hanging all four of the characters. This is a wrenching scene that perfectly sets the tone for the film we're about to see.
There's a surprising sophistication to the material in Sinister, which makes it the most surprising horror effort of last year. For a mainstream release, it's stunningly atmospheric and almost poetry stemming from Gothic roots. I can only compare it, recently, to The Woman in Black, a film attempting to replicate the style and potency that is found in Hammer Horror films. At the center of that film was Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe, doing one of his first solo, grown-up roles after years of being the subject of a lucrative franchise. Sinister throws Ethan Hawke in a wonderfully subtle performance, providing depth and massive conflict to his character as a whole.
The thing about Sinister is, by horror film standards, it does much more than we expect it to, and for that matter, does it all to a certain level of efficiency and craft. It abandons much of the "jump-scare" cliché, and uses it cautiously and with great effect, it focuses on characters, disciplined and rational, it shows Ellison's descent into obsession effectively and realistically, relies on setting, sound, and tone to invoke fear in its audience, and pulls out an engaging story to tie everything back together.
The film's best scene comes shortly after the hour mark and involves Ellison and Tracy angrily spitting words with venom and hate back and forth, Ellison saying how his book, while potentially sacrificing his family's safety, will buoy them financially, and Tracy saying how he has become such an unrecognizable man being buried and eaten alive by his work. This gives a good ethics debate for the average audience member, who is usually sitting frozen or bored, yet likewise, waiting for something to happen; is it okay to sacrifice personal welfare for potential financial security or live a cautious life with no security? Finally, one detail I forgot to mention was the use of sound in Sinister, not just from the abrupt scares or the sudden "pangs" in the night, but the click of the Super 8 film, the whirring of the projector, the snapping of the film, and the crackling static of the sound quality. This is a more stylistically alive film, in terms of classic detail, than the latter Paranormal Activity series.
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Fred Thompson, James Ransone, Clare Foley, and Michael Hall D'Addario. Directed by: Scott Derrickson.