Sinister delivers creepy chills with an empty ending

Rating: 8/10 (30 October 2012)

Certainly the October month is crowded with horror films. Sinister does manage to bring a certain unique quality to the genre and provides a story that could be easily spread over multiple films although its also not the type of horror flick that would normally get a sequel. The suspense is good and it doesn't leave you to a long elaborate build up but instead jumps right into the plot and the chills. The film has a solid story, good lore to the whole concept, decent performances, just all around a well done, entertaining and downright creepy flick. I think its the type of film that Stephen King would absolutely love. It reeks of his style (and that's a big compliment!) Struggling writer, paranormal circumstances, small town, and perhaps most importantly a man who progressively is losing his grip on sanity and reality throughout the course of the film. The only issue with the movie is perhaps they create too big of a potential story arc for one movie to handle so some of the details gets left behind.
Ethan Hawke is excellent, really top notch as the determined writer, husband and father. In a short amount of time you can actually see the insanity of this paranormal entity getting to him. He fits his character well and basically single-handedly carries the film star wise. Juliet Rylance plays his devoted but frustrated wife. She is sort of understated in the film, her character is not well developed and is really just there to be support to his character. Michael Hall D'Addario and Clare Foley do a great job as Hawke's children. They are both very convincing and really have some great moments in the film. Considering the direction the film takes they should have had a more leading role in the movie. James Ransone is good as "Deputy so and so" as he's known. He doesn't have a huge role but him and Hawke have good chemistry and his character is integral to the story. I very much would have liked to have seen more from Vincent D'Onofrio who has an uncredited role as Professor Jonas, the expert. So much more could have been done with his character.
Sinister does not use the biggest horror fad now of hand cam, "this is real" type direction and yet it does. It works it in there by using the old home videos that Hawke finds. This brings us full circle and will actually make you feel creeped out again by the home movie style of direction. Director Scott Derrickson's first film was a bonafide horror classic "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." While Sinister doesn't quite match how great that was, you can still tell the man knows how to tell a solid story. If the only thing I can say bad about this is that I wanted more than they did a great job. Sinister delivers everything you'd expect from the trailers and descriptions. Its a good solid horror flick. The ending is supposed to be a twist although I don't think it really shocked me all that much and it will certainly leave lots of questions in your mind. Well worth the price of admission this Halloween! 8/10