Blood Drawings, Creepy Kids, and Ghoul-Masks Softly Lit by an iPhone

Rating: 7/10 (28 May 2013)

Few horror films are bold enough to not only root their cause of frights in an obsession with screens – both the computer and cinema variety – but also incriminate audiences (by proxy) as predominantly responsible for horrific happenings through their inability to tear their gaze away. Such audacious self-reflexivity should be difficult to execute without the film unraveling, but director Scott Derrickson instead alludes to recent genre trends erring towards 'found footage, documentary style realism', without skimping on the old-school supernatural scares and jumps. As such, Sinister cannily blends 'old and new', a post-Paranormal Activity thriller unafraid to exploit the genre's roots in melodrama and excess.
Indeed, Derrickson, like his first foray into horror, 2005's The Exorcism of Emily Rose, proves adept at marinating in genre conventions while subtly riffing on them to tweak expectations just enough. The premise (a 'true crime' writer who moves his family into the house of the recent murder victims whose case he is documenting discovers a box of 'home movies' that suggest a chain of interconnected serial family murders) is just outlandish enough to be original, yet just grounded enough to fly.
Equally, Sinister flourishes atmospherically, with its scores of documented murders adopting a surreal, grotesque beauty, rendered operatic through Christopher Young's exquisitely cacophonous musical score. Anchored through Ethan Hawke's magnetic, jittery performance and a couple of refreshing plot twists where (gasp!) characters actually result to horrific happenings sensibly, Derrickson nonetheless quashes such baited hope through an unflinching fatalism. Sinister's horror is fast, furious and relentless, and sure to spook hardened horror-vets and casual thrill-seekers alike.
-7/10