Candi’s Corner: Sinister (On DVD)

I came into the game late with SINISTER. 

Although a self-professed horror movie buff, I didn’t run
off to the movies the weekend that Sinister premiered, much less at
all. Chalk it up to being more than jaded at the latest slaughter and
splatter movies of late. What happened to the psychology of the
madman? I found myself looking for horror movies on YouTube,
analyzing the emotional state of the debased leading ladies in Miss
.45 and Thriller: A Cruel Picture. 

Time passed, and as if
real life wasn’t scary enough, I was suddenly in the mood for Sinister, so I did
the usual- YouTube and Rotten Tomatoes check.
The tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes was high, higher than I had ever
seen a horror movie rated on the website in a long while! I clicked
on YouTube to view some interviews and came across one with its
writer, C. Robert Cargill, and his journey from professional film
critic to screenwriter. I was transfixed. When I got the Redbox alert
on my phone that Sinister had arrived, I was ready. 

The opening scene is
fantastic. For those who have yet to see the film, I won’t tell you
what it is. But it’s definitely both a fascinating and morbid
opener to a movie, leading you into a glimpse of what Ethan Hawke’s
character will spend his waking days and nights obsessing about. Ellison Oswalt (Hawke) is a writer, going from town to town with his
family in tow, writing stories about crimes and the people who commit
them. He’s arrived at another new home where a crime actually
happened on its grounds, with his loving, unsuspecting family. He’s
told right off the bat from the town sheriff that he should turn
around and go back to whence he came. Does he listen? Of course not!
There’s a new book to write and Ellison needs money and secretly
craves more fame than the one he was granted with from his previous
novel.

Within the first
twenty minutes of the movie you know something is coming. Is it a
ghost? The killer? Both? Obviously, it’s going to be something or
someone sinister. Cargill and the film’s director Scott Derrickson
know how to build suspense. Ellison finds snuff films in the attic of
his new home. Curiosity befalls him and he watches them. His writer’s
spidey sense kicks in and he smells his next smash literary hit. He
hears weird noises at night and finds his sleepwalking son in a box
having yet another night terror. On and on and on the movie goes and
we are invited to seeing more snuff film footage, while watching
Ellison slowly lose grip of reality. As a writer myself I know what
it’s like to have a need to immerse yourself in a story. 7 hours of
research, 3 hours of writing, 10 minutes of fame. It’s those 10
minutes that mean everything in the ending of the film and the
fragile mentality of Hawke’s character.

There will definitely be a sequel to
Sinister, because how could there not be? The ending is
positioned nicely to usher in another tale, possibly making a
franchise of this film in the way that Saw and Paranormal
Activity has done. Sinister is undoubtedly a tale of lust,
lust for fame and knowing the truth, even if it may kill you. If you
like ghosts, psychological thrillers, fictional stories that could
happen in ‘real life’, analyzing what makes people commit crimes,
“WTF?” movie endings, and good acting, you’ll love Sinister.

Candace Smith has also contributed the following posts to Tinsel & Tine: The Perks of Being a Wallflower,  Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, The 18th Annual Critics Choice Awards,