Fairly well acted and at times it's pretty creepy, but it's nothing we haven't seen before

Rating: 5/10 (26 August 2013)

I remember a friend of mine going to see this at the cinema when it came out last year and I remember him saying that it was a 'great film' and was really scary. I noticed the DVD whilst out and about, and saw at the top of box that it said it was from the producers behind 'Paranormal Activity' and 'Insidious' - 2 films which I did enjoy. I decided to give it a try on this basis and felt rather disappointed when the film ended.
Ellison (Hawke) is a struggling True Crime Writer who hasn't been able to produce a decent book since 'Kentucky Blood' which he released about 10 years ago. Upon hearing about a house that is for sale which carries a dark secret - a family were murdered there and which is really cheap due to its 'dark secret', Ellison decides to buy the house and move his family there as he believes this will be the perfect setting for his next bestseller. Of course, he keeps the 'dark secret' from his wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance) as he had already promised her that he wouldn't move them anywhere that has a 'questionable past'. Once the family move into the house, Ellison discovers a box with various 'movie reels' and each reel contains murders of different families in different years and each of the families are killed in different ways - the only apparent links between the killings is that one family member is always left alive and a strange symbol is left at each crime scene - is Ellison really onto something big or is it something that is too big for him that he is best off leaving well alone? Part of the problem with Sinister is that the pacing is ridiculously slow - for about the first 45 minutes to an hour nothing really happens. You will occasionally just hear floor boards creaking or the occasional loud noise, but in my mind there was never any kind of 'threat' and I never really felt scared for the family. The other problem is that when the film tried to be scary it failed in that respect as well - a lot of the time what was about to happen you could see it coming a mile off because it's the sort of thing you've seen time and time again. It's fairly obvious without reading the cover of the DVD that this is by the same people behind Paranormal Activity & Insidious as Sinister seems to try to combine elements of both films, but for me it just didn't have the same 'psychologically scary feel' that PA and Insidious had - they were scary because of the fear of the 'unknown presence' that terrorised their victims and I just didn't get that feeling here which meant that Sinister lacked the edge of your seat suspense.
Another aspect of film enjoyment is being prepared to 'suspend your disbelief' but unfortunately there were a couple of things that didn't make sense. Firstly, why did the police give up on the murder investigation in the first place? They just assume that the little girl is dead without finding a body - not likely. Secondly - the home movie reels, in the real world surely the police would have seized everything from the house as 'evidence' when they discovered that the family had been murdered which would have meant that the reels wouldn't have been there in the first place.
Sinister did have some good points; I quite liked the atmosphere and the general 'feel' of the film - the cinematography was great and there were odd moments of creepiness here and there. The acting was also great and I felt that Ethan Hawke gave a convincing performance as a down on his luck crime writer trying to get his next big break.
In all honesty, I wouldn't recommend watching Sinister. The pacing was appalling and a lot of the time I didn't find the characters actions believable. Whilst it tried to create tension and suspense, a lot of the time it was predictable so I never really felt scared whilst watching Sinister. The ending of the film suggests that there might be a sequel to Sinister, but if it's anything like this film I'll probably give it a miss.