Fails to get under your skin, but offers some genuine moments of pure terror

Rating: 5/10 (15 October 2012)

Sinister review
It's almost Halloween. I know this not because I looked at a calendar this morning, but because I checked the showings at my local cinema. Frankenweenie, Paranorman, Paranormal activity 4 and my choice for Saturday night, Sinister. From director Scott Derrickson, his first after 4 years since the poor 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' remake, he has a lot to prove with his latest foray into the horror genre.
And from the film's opening shot, super 8 footage of a family of 4 being hanged from a tree in their backyard, Sinister begins as grimly as it means to go on. Focusing on true crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) and his family. Things begin innocuously enough, he moves into his new home in a new town so he can attempt to write his next big hit, as well as solve mystery of a missing girl Stephanie, the 5th member of the family we see in the film's opening. It seems that Ellison likes to move as close as possible to crime scenes, as in his garden is the tree used to hang the family we saw in the opening shot. From here, Sinister throws everything from bumps in the night, malevolent spirits and some very grisly violence at its audience in its almost desperate attempt to generate scares.
And the thing is it does. If based solely on the originality of its content, Sinister could and should be thrown of the scrap heap with most of the horror offerings from the past 10 years. Predictable doesn't begin to describe it. False scares, people tripping, strange figures that lurk so obviously in photos that it's a wonder they've never been noticed . But for its lack on original ideas, Derrickson does a good job of pacing his film efficiently, giving enough family themed lowdown to balance out the blood chilling scares. After finding a box of 'home movies' in the otherwise empty attic of this new home (where else would they be?) they reveal the horrific murders of other families, with each family having one survivor, the youngest child, who promptly goes missing.
The plot development happens almost exclusively in these tapes as Ellison watches and re watches them, hunting for clues. Without wanting to spoil proceeding too much, the evidence that Ellison gathers takes the film in a different direction than previously implied, and this change hurts the film dramatically. It becomes less psychological and threatening, but the trade-off is an increase in scares, both quality and quantity. These scares do little to get inside your head and creep you out, but capitalise of the tension that Derrickson builds up so well with decent camera work and pulse pounding music. The second half of sinister features a plethora of scary faces, screaming heads and creepy, half decayed children lurking in the shadows. It's a real waste that some of the jumps are telegraphed to the point where you can see events 2 minutes before they happen. Yes, the attic isn't the best place to go at 3am in the morning, ever.
It's this stupidity from the characters that lowers the quality of sinister yet another degree. Why creep round a darkened house with a torch when it's sunny outside and you could just open the curtains? If the attic steps suddenly descend from the ceiling, don't go up there. And if the masked serial killer committed all of the murders in the tapes left in your attic appears in your garden; don't exit your house to 'investigate'. These aren't crimes that are exclusive to Sinister, if characters were smart in horror films the genre would probably die, but here it sure as hell damaged my enjoyment of the film.
It has a myriad of flaws, its predictable, cheap and wont haunt your dreams like it should, but sinister almost effortlessly generates the scares that horror junkies so badly crave. It's nothing that you probably haven't seen before, but sinister is worth its weight in screams. 5