Fear is Predictable

Rating: 1/10 (4 February 2014)

So stop me if you've heard this one: an ambitiously stupid writer and his unbelievably obnoxious wife drag their children to an ominous house where weird things start to happen. No, really!
Sinister has its moments of tension, but it blows through them within the first 30 minutes, in which time you also learn enough about the plot to pretty much figure out everything. The fact that the film runs nearly two hours long is definitely not to its advantage, as it overstays its welcome and keeps escalating the ridiculousness until any viewer who had seen even a few horror films would surely recognise what a cliché-ridden bore it becomes.
The supernatural elements of the script would have been better downplayed, if not cut out entirely. They made for an 'easy out' for the story, rather than tightening it and making it seem truly chilling; even The Ring, something of an inspiration for Sinister, did it far better by making the supernatural elements seem concrete and believable, a ubiquitous and inescapable threat. This is even worse since the supernatural pieces of Sinister are often comically or plainly not scary, unless the viewer happens to have a phobia of children in face paint mugging for the camera. A more interesting and tragic story is told in the breakdown of the author's relationship with his wife, as insufferable as she was and as asinine as he was. It's why The Shining worked better than Sinister, because the threat was very real as well as being touched by supernatural factors. And I don't even care for The Shining, but it did a better job of telling essentially the same story!
Amazing how a 'nearly broke' author can afford a massive château, multiple times moving house -- with movers! -- within a couple of weeks, and still not actually seem to be cutting corners at all. Oh wait, no, they only had Chinese takeaway once; they must be *really* roughing it. Also, is everyone else in the house completely deaf? Someone not only shouting or at times screaming at the top of his lungs, falling down ladders, tossing heavy boxes around, and not a single person seems to notice? No-one sleeps that deeply, least of all children. Funny, too, how a police officer who was concerned about the author he was unable to reach on the phone all day about the danger to his life wasn't able to, you know, get any other police to go check on him. Especially as only the most look would easily turn up where he was. Unfortunately, this is just a drop in the bucket of all the holes and various other problems in Sinister.
Its cast are serviceable at best, but they can do nothing with a script that makes no character likable, interesting, or remotely reasonable. The deputy -- whom I can only recall as 'Deputy So-and-So', which should tell you plenty -- is the only interesting character and is barely on- screen, but he seems not to fit the film at all and would be more suited in the universe of Twin Peaks.
Ultimately one doesn't care so much about the characters or their welfare, but instead the investment of time in the film itself, and so when the inevitable, predictable outcome occurs, it's nothing but infuriating. It's not scary, the effects are not special (and in fact are more reminiscent of a very pedestrian attempt), and nothing really makes much sense. You'll find yourself angry at poor writing and a massive waste of time, mildly unsettled by the first half-hour and bored by the last 3/4 of the film. Really, overstaying its welcome is something Sinister revels in, and it's especially annoying in that it makes the viewer sit through every smug moment of self-assured brilliance that the audience doesn't share, which anyone with half a brain anticipated from the first 30 minutes.
It's amazing how some people were apparently really scared by this. The scariest part of it was that the script must have made it to screen without any editorial oversight or revisions. Save yourself the trouble and just look at the poster, it basically tells you the entire plot anyway and you save two hours of wasted time that will just make you angry.