Sinister
Scott Derrickson
Summit
It seemed like only yesterday that there was a point to films from the horror genre. Classic titles such as Nightmare on Elm Street, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Ring had its viewers huddling in terror in their darkened living rooms as memorable villains had us wishing we could turn away, but drawing us in at the same time.
This all changed following the success of Paranormal Activity, a supernatural horror film relying on scare tactics to make the audience jump to compensate for an overall lack of character development and story. While Oren Peli blended these tactics fairly well into his movie, the film’s imitators have thus far been unable to replicate its success.
Scott Derrickson’s new film, Sinister, continues to follow this trend. Starring Ethan Hawke as a struggling true-crime author named Ellison Oswalt, who is desperately seeking a return to fame and fortune with another hit novel, the movie relies heavily on the concept of “found footage,” where different forms of media within the film create most of the conflict.
Ellison and his family, all of which portray stereotypical roles in the film, including Tracy, Ellison’s wife who is continuously at odds with his decisions, and Ashley, their quiet daughter wholikes to paint disturbing images on walls move into the house of a particularly gruesome murder in which the entire family was ritualistically hanged in the backyard. Oswalt discovers a box of old film footage depicting this murder as well as several others, in which he uncovers a rather foreboding figure named Mr. Boogie.
As the film progresses, it becomes less grounded in the realm of the physical and moves into the supernatural, which is the largest tragedy of the film.
Mr. Boogie turns out to be an obscure Babylonian demon that feasts on the souls of children, possessing and forcing them to kill and film their family members before whisking them off to the nether realm to become his next meal.
As a result, the horror in Sinister is largely grounded in cheap scare tactics and grotesque imagery, like one scene in which Mr. Boogie runs a lawnmower over his victim’s face (off camera of course).
This is all ambiguously explained for most of the film, leaving the audience wondering whether any of the events were actually occurring, or if they were simply by-products of Oswalt’s growing insanity.
Despite a promising introduction and valiant attempts to liven up the script from the actors, Derrickson’s decision to include a supernatural element in his film ultimately led to its failure to deliver terror and suspense. Scenes became boring and predictable as each horror scene consisted of the projector switching on and Ellison stumbling around in the dark, jumping at each creak as the soulless minions of Mr. Boogie run around the house for no apparent reason other than to rile him up. Apart from Ellison, Ashley and Mr. Boogie, most of the other characters served little to no purpose and gained little, if any development. As a result, while Sinister tries to emulate iconic psychological horror slashers like Nightmare on Elm Street, it falls laughably short of this goal.
