Ellison Oswalt

**Ellison Oswalt** is the main protagonist of Sinister. He is Portrayed by Ethan Hawke.

## Biography

Ellison had a wife named Tracy, and two kids named Trevor and Ashley. He was also a true crime writer who had experienced a heavy roadblock in his career, since, even though one of his novels, Kentucky Blood, was a success, it had also been the only successful novel he had written in ten years.

The Oswalts had recently moved out of their home, but, unbeknownst to them, their new house had previously been owned by the Stevenson family, who had been murdered the previous year. After hearing about the story from a local sheriff, Ellison is inspired and intends to use the murder case as the basis for his new book, and also hopes that his research will reveal the fate of the Stevenson family's fifth member, a 10-year-old girl named Stephanie who disappeared following the murders.

That night, Ellison goes into the attic of his new home, and discovers a box containing a projector and several reels of Super 8 mm footage that are each labeled as home movies. He briefly flicks through the various titles before heading downstairs to dinner, where his wife berates him for wanting to write a story based on a recent tragedy, especially around his kids. She also expresses concern that he hasn't written a successful novel in ten years, but he promises her that everything will be fine.

Whilst setting up a conspiracy wall in his office, Ellison decides to watch the home movies he found, starting with *Family Hanging Out '11*. The video starts off normal at first, but suddenly turns sinister (hahahaHAHA--) when it cuts to the titular family standing beneath a tree with hoods over their heads and nooses around their necks. An unseen figure saws through a branch on the tree acting as a counterweight, causing the family to be hanged. Ellison realises that the family in the video were the Stevensons from the story he was told about.

Ellison is disturbed, but nevertheless he checks out another reel, entitled *BBQ '79*. This one, similarly, also starts off seemingly normal, only to cut to the people shown within (this time, the Martinez family), being burned alive in their car. Ellison goes to call the police to tell them of the snuff films he has discovered, but decides against it last minute, being more focused on getting his story made. He then goes to check out another reel, entitled *Pool Party '76*, but is distracted by a noise before he can start the video, and when he goes to explore, he finds it to be from his son Trevor, half-naked in a box and screaming as a result of a night terror.

The next morning, Ellison gets around to watching the Pool Party video, which shows a family from Oregon being killed in a mass drowning in their backyard pool. While watching the video, however, he notices a strange masked figure standing at the bottom of the pool. That night, he plays yet another reel, entitled *Sleepy Time '98*, which shows another family getting their throats slit whilst strapped to their beds. Here, Ellison begins to feel the impact of viewing the snuff films, visibly looking away when a young son is murdered. Nevertheless, he digitizes the reels in order to investigate them more closely, and he sees a recurring symbol throughout the videos. He also matches the Sleepy Time murder footage to news reports from St. Louis, Missouri, in which members of the Miller family were murdered, while 13-year-old Christopher Miller disappeared.

After finding out about the Miller murders, the house's power suddenly cuts out, and Ellison hears noises coming from the attic. He goes into it, where he finds a snake hiding underneath the lid of the box of film reels, and also discovers childlike drawings depicting the murders on the back of the lid, with a strange figure called "Mr. Boogie" also present in each of them. At one point, Ellison encounters a Rottweiler in the backyard.

The next morning, Ellison consults a local deputy and asks him to help him solve the case of the snuff films. The deputy later calls him while he is looking over the footage, and provides him with the various names and addresses of the murdered families. There, they discover that the filmed murders took place at different times and in different cities across the country (ever since 1966, with the mass pool drowning), and that a child from each family disappeared following every murder. Here, Ellison also realizes that the Stevensons had previously lived in the home belonging to the Millers before moving away. That night, after Trevor experiences another night terror, Tracy expresses concern that his night terrors are happening more frequently, and tells Ellison that she wants them to move back home and for Ellison to give up on the new book. However, Ellison refuses, since this is his last chance to write another successful novel.

That night, Ellison watches the fifth and final reel, entitled *Lawn Work '86*. This reel depicts a mother, Mrs. De Luzio, being run over with a lawnmower, which startles Ellison. On the recommendation of Deputy So & So, Ellison later has a Skype meeting with an occult specialist named Professor Jonas, who tells him that the symbol he found in the videos is representative of an ancient and obscure Pagan deity known as Bughuul, the eater of children. As Jonas states, Bughuul would kill entire families and take one of their children to consume their soul slowly. Since he sees it as just a legend, Jonas believes that the murders are part of a cult initiation rite, rather than the work of a single person, and thus sees no real reason for Ellison to worry. As he goes to bed, however, Ellison is awoken the film projector running, and is unknowingly followed throughout the house by ghostly formations of the missing children.

He passes out on the couch, and the next morning, he begins getting stressed over the whole situation, which is made worse when he finds that Ashley has painted a picture of Stephanie on her wall. Tracy asks who Stephanie is, and Ashley responds by saying she used to live at their current home, then reveals that Ellison is writing a book about it. Tracy is infuriated over how Ellison has been hiding the fact that they have been living at a murder site from her. Ellison defends himself at first, but Tracy gets upset over how Ellison values his work over his family.

That night, Ellison is once again awoken from his sleep, and after finding the attic ladder opened up, finds the zombie-like, missing children seated in the attic watching one of the films. Bughuul suddenly appears on camera before physically appearing before Ellison, causing him to fall off the ladder in fright. Ellison takes the camera, projector, and films outside and burns them, and he tells Tracy that she was right, and that they are moving back to their old house immediately. The family does so right away the next morning.

At his old home, Ellison receives a video-message from Jonas, who sends him scans of historical images associated with Bughuul, which include the symbol seen in the murder movies, as well as three symbolic animals that Ellison encountered at the Stevenson house: a scorpion, a snake, and a dog. Jonas explains that early Christians believed that images of Bughuul served as a gateway for the demon to come from the spiritual realm to the mortal world, and children who come into contact with these images can be possessed due to them being "especially vulnerable".

That night, Ellison discovers the unharmed projector and films in his attic, exactly as he did in the new house, along with an envelope of film labeled "*Extended Cut Endings*". Deputy So & So calls and informs Ellison that every murdered family had previously lived in the house where the last murder took place, and each new murder occurred shortly after the family moved from the crime scene into their new residence, traced back to the murder of the Martinez family by arson in 1979 after they moved to Sacramento, California, from the Portland, Oregon, site of the 1966 drownings. By moving, Ellison has unwillingly placed himself and his family in line to be the next victims.

Ellison watches the new footage, which shows the missing children coming onscreen following each murder, revealing themselves to be the killers under Bughuul's influence before suddenly dissapearing.

## Death

Ellison becomes lightheaded and notices a green liquid at the bottom of his coffee mug, along with a note from Ashley that says, "Good night, Daddy," before losing consciousness. He awakes to find himself, Tracy, and Trevor bound and gagged on the floor. Ashley, having been influenced by the spirit of Stephanie Stevenson to fall under Bughuul's possession, approaches them while filming with the 8 mm camera. She tells her father that she will make him "famous again", and proceeds to murder her family with an axe.