SMG Solutions Reviews: Sinister - Horror Movie Review 2012

Oct. 11, 2012 - PRLog -- Ethan Hawke plays Ellison, a true crime author who’s struggling to recreate his earlier success. Ten years before the events of Sinister, his book Kentucky Blood was a bestseller, resolving a crime the police had been unable to figure out, and briefly making him a media celebrity. Now married to wife Tracy (Juliette Rylance) and with two kids to feed, he’s keen to get started on a book that will again establish him as a writer of merit and provide a better suited financial life for his family.

In his quest for literary glory, Ellison moved his family into a house with a terrible past. The previous occupants were murdered in horrible hanging in the back garden, while the youngest child subsequently disappeared and was never found - He kept the past story of the property a secret from his wife who knows only the brief details of the book he is embarking on.

Ellison’s determined to make the murders the subject of his latest book, and despite the veiled threats of local sheriff who knows of the writers past celebrity uncovering an unsolved murder and in the sheriffs eyes 'making a mockery of the police'.

This has no effect on his ambition he’s willing to go to any lengths to get to the bottom of who killed them. Shortly after he moves in, the writer discovers an old box of  film in the loft, which far from providing clues to his investigation, maddeningly deepen its mystery. Who committed the crime? Who filmed it, and why? And how did the reels end up in the loft?  

Ellison becomes consumed by a mystery, and spends long periods of time engrossed in the pursuit of the truth – like us, he's repulsed by what he sees on the home movies that were left in the loft, but can't quite bring himself to look away.
He watches and re-watches grainy lengths of footage,pausing over individual frames and scanning them for clues it seems he is losing his mind in the process of finding what he’s looking for. As the plot unfolds, things begin to go bump in the night, and Ellison’s nerves begin to fray.

After a promising build-up, Sinister introduces a long series of jump-scare moments. The first of these is admittedly brilliant, and presents an image of such jaw-dropping, surreal intensity - Real look away from the screen moments are followed with a few jump out of your seat shocks! Hawke’s performance holds the screen through its more hackneyed moments, and it’s the scenes where it’s just him, a projector, and a few feet of hideous footage where the movie truly convinces. And while its scares are frequently cheap, it’s also difficult to deny that Sinister sometimes manages to inspire moments of palpable dread.

All together it is an entertaining watch the bulk of the movie captures your imagination nearly making it a memorable watch but unfortunately the plot of the story reaches abit of a confusing and not very well explained ending if you are looking for a scare- minus too much blood and gore and a half decent plot its well worth a watch.