Sinister indeed. Freezes your blood to inky black.

Rating: 8/10 (7 October 2015)

It isn't easy to come across a horror movie that genuinely scary these days. So when a flick like the effectively creepy, gripping Sinister comes along, one must take note. It contains many of the tropes and tricks we see employed in countless cannon fodder horror duds churned out by folks that wouldn't know an effective scare from a hole in he ground. And yet, the makers of this one, especially the composer who I'll touch on in a moment too, craft their story in such a way that all of that feels fresh, organic and most of the time downright terrifying. There's such a thickening blanket of dread over the movie that I had to watch an episode of Wet Hot American Summer right after, just to undiminish the creeping fear that it set on me and ensure I could get to sleep OK. The plot is familiar within the genre: an edgy true crime writer (Ethan Hawke) arrives at a new house, where murders took place (which he doesn't tell his wife, the prick) with his family to document the horrors of the past for his new book. He discovers an old box of super 8 film stock in the attic, containing blood freezing, candid accounts of various different murders, each more panic inducing than the last. These tapes hold the core of what makes the film so scary: They're jagged, nightmarish POV visions of atrocities too unsettling in nature to mention here. Composer Christopher Young should be truly proud of his work here; the sounds he makes to go along with the films are beyond anything I've heard on film before, and resemble actual passages of otherworldy music floating through a rift from another dimension. As soon as he watches the tapes weird things start happening, of course. His kids get hellish night terrors, he sees things, and a malevolent forces encircles him and his family. The human drama and writing, an element which is tragically often left by the wayside in the horror genre, is excellent here, a particular standout being a third act fight between Hawke and his wife that feels realistically desperate, handled wonderfully by the duo. There's nice work form actor turned politician turned actor Fred Dalton Thompson as a cranky local Sheriff, and a cameo via Skype from Wilson Fisk himself, Vincent D'Onofrio. Seldom these days do we find a horror that really sends the creepin willies up your spine and hurries your walk from the dark kitchen to tour room at night by double time. To any movie that manages this for me: mission accomplished.