Sinister not 'sinister' enough

Rating: 4/10 (24 November 2012)

Let me start by saying I went into this film with high hopes. Hearing that it was from the producers of Paranormal Activity and Insidious I'm ashamed to say had me duped – but this is no Insidious. After watching it I looked up the Directors history and was shocked to see that this guy was behind the remake of The day the Earth stood still and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, how can you go from those films to this?
I also found out that Scott Derrickson only co-wrote Exorcism and did not write The Day the Earth stood still remake, which kind of shows. I don't want to be too harsh on the director and I will get to some positives. There's a certain rule of thumb with films like this- Its what you don't see that makes films like this scary. This film completely ignores that rule.
It all went wrong for me when the kid came out of the box. It was not scary and did not add anything to the plot. This followed by lots of build-ups to nothing (by the way there's nothing scary about a snake, or a dog for that matter and why was the dog even there) and then children wearing scary make-up and that God-awful shushing they kept doing – what the hell was that for by the way. The whole thing became quite tedious.
I later found out that the director was influenced by films like The Shining, 8mm, The Conversation and Manhunter. He should really go back and watch those films again because this was dreadful in comparison.
To his merit, it did have some scary moments but only as the story was building. I think it had potential, the concept was good and could have been really scary if handled right but to be honest it was ruined by all the usual clichés, an anti climactic ending and well, just too many poor decisions by the filmmakers.
There was no back story or explanation as to where this entity had come from or why he was there. I kept waiting to hear about how he had been conjured up by some cult or serial killer or something, but no. The Possession had more of an origin story than this and that film truly did stink.
The acting was good, I think Ethan Hawk was wasted in this movie. The cop's character development was all over the place. One minute he was a gormless bumbling idiot and the next some deep, profound thinker and the protagonist's right-hand man.
The soundtrack was good and set the tone throughout the first stages. It did create a false sense that I was in for something truly Sinister though, especially combined with the horrific murders on super 8 film, which increased my disappointment when all I got was a film that lacked any real depth or plot development.
So to round up - great potential, glad I didn't pay to watch it, felt annoyed when it finished, some scary moments ruined by not so scary ones and stupid ones. Found it more annoying towards the end - children in make-up shushing – not scary. The creature itself – at the end – ridiculous.
If the story and screenplay would have been more developed, could of been another Saw, Halloween, The Shining, Insidious, instead became another The Possession, The woman in black, in the same category as some of those other major let downs this year.