I can't say I loved this one as much as some people.

Rating: 6/10 (5 September 2014)

"Sinister" represents a good, sincere effort in the overworked genre known as "found footage". It's generally well acted, with the cast managing to create some watchable enough characters. Co-writer / director Scott Derrickson ("Deliver Us from Evil", "The Exorcism of Emily Rose") is able to craft some suspense, atmosphere, and overall creepiness. That said, the whole thing reeks of familiarity, too much of it for it to work that well, and in the end it's pretty damn predictable.
Ethan Hawke stars as Ellison Oswalt, a struggling true crime author desperate to recapture the success of an earlier book. So he makes the standard Dumb Horror Movie Choice of moving with his wife and kids into a forbidding setting: the home of a family who was hung in their backyard. When he ventures into the attic, he finds scores of Super 8 film left behind - all of it featuring murder and much of it featuring an ominous presence.
Hawke does alright, and has some good moments with Juliet Rylance as the long suffering wife Tracy, Fred Dalton Thompson as the disapproving sheriff, and James Ransone as the young deputy who's eager to be of service to the author, in hopes of receiving a shout out in Ellisons' current book. Clare Foley and Michael Hall D'Addario are decent as the kids, who each pick up on the bad vibes in the house and express their feelings in similar ways. Vincent D'Onofrio has a key uncredited role as an exposition provider.
Basically, this is very slickly made, with top notch cinematography by Chris Norr, and it is somewhat spooky at times, but it doesn't bring that much to the table, and is prone to too many jump scares and "stinger" moments in the music score.
Six out of 10.