Sinister (2012)

The Gist: A has been true crime writer moves his family into the house where 4 members of the previous family were hung in the backyard and the youngest daughter is now missing, to write a book about the unsolved murders and missing girl.  He discovers a box of home videos and strange things start to happen as he watches multiple families being murdered.

Oswalts, Cops & Boogies: Ethan Hawke (Ellison Oswalt), James Ransone (Deputy), Fred Dalton Thompson (Sheriff), Juliet Rylance (Tracy), Clare Foley (Ashley), Michael Hall D’Addario (Trevor), Nicholas King (Bughuul /Mr. Boogie)

My Take: The movie starts out with a grainy scene from a home movie (on super 8 film) of four people being hung from a tree. We are then introduced to true crime writer, Ellison Oswalt and his wife and two children.  His wife is not aware that they have moved into the murder house (she finds out of course) and lets him know that while she supports him, she can’t keep living a life where they are pariahs because of the controversial way he writes his books.  That is one understanding wife to be supportive even though his career hurts his family.  

Ellison finds a box of films in the attic, and a scorpion then a corn snake, which shows the murders of the former family who lived in the house as well as other films dating back to the 1960’s showing the murders of 4 other families.  He watches the tapes and soon finds connecting markers: a strange occult symbol and the face of a mysterious, horrific being looming in the background.  Another interesting connection is that the youngest child of each family is not among the murdered and is classified as missing.

There are a couple of good scares with the “missing” children popping up in the background and the creepy masked figure is, well, creepy or as my husband pointed out, looks likes a Norwegian death metal face.  The outcome of what has taken place and who has committed the murders is not really what I was expecting and the lore/mythology behind the creepy masked figure also added to the interesting story line.

Norwegian Death Metal Artist or Bughuul /Mr. Boogie

Yah or Nah: Yah.  I thoroughly enjoyed this movie from the premise, the development of the story, the found footage and straight on to the conclusion.  It reminded me of Insidious as the haunting is not limited to one location but I feel that Sinister is a more mature and eerie movie.  Whereas the villain in Insidious came off more like a fairy tale entity, the villain(s) in Sinister were far more disturbing.