Here's what you need to know; still desperate to hold onto the fame and fortune of his best seller days, true crime writer Ellison Oswalt moves his family into the house of a grisly murder case to inspire his new book. But things take a dark turn when he finds a collection of grotesque Super 8 films in the attic, sending him down a rabbit hole of evil and occult goings on that could be the end of far more than just his career.
It was about a year ago now that I first watched this film, sometime before last Halloween, me, my sister and a friend ordered some Domino's pizza and watched a scary movie, we ended up watching Sinister, a film I'd picked up on Blu Ray but a few days prior. So was Sinister a good choice all those moons ago while we gorged on Pizza, let's find out.
Sinister's opening shot is something a few reviewers I found brought up as an important point back when it released in 2012, so I'm going to do the same because it does kind of need to be said in this case. Without spoiling it for the untainted, the opening shot of Sinister is some of the most bluntly horrific shit I've seen in a mainstream horror film; the grainy quality and distorted speed gives the sequence and uncanniness, and the visceral nature of the imagery is as spellbinding as it is terrifying, it'll either make you turn off the TV or hook you till the end, which I very much believe to have been the point. Like any good opening sequence, this one also sets the scene; creates a mood that establishes the tone of the film, this goes wrong when a film deviates from that tone *cough* Halloween *cough*, But while Sinister does do this a few times in the film, it's far more negligible than in that other film. The film follows Ellison Oswalt as he investigates this murder case only to find the tapes and discover some unimaginable evil lurking just beneath the surface, and you know exactly what you're in for from the simple phase; has-been writer, he has family issues, alcohol and stress issues, and an obsessive desire to hit it big again that's tearing his life apart. But while the character is nothing special, Ethan Hawke sells it, and his personal demons create a vulnerability that manifests in the film's scarier scenes, making them even scarier. The film is effectively all about him, in fact from what I recall the film never breaks from his side of the story, I could be wrong on that though, but it contributes to an intimacy with the characters and story which, again, contributes to the horror. His wife acts life a wife, the strain in their marriage is very clearly showing, but she's prepared to stick with Ellison and see him through. Like the hubby, it's nothing groundbreaking, but the film utilizes Ellison's personal weaknesses with subtlety and restraint, creating a more believable relationship that you can see both sides of, he is a burnout but she's a cautious optimist. The kids meanwhile act like horror movie kids for the most part, they're not in the film much and obviously have some sort of connection to the spooky shit going on, but the role this ends up playing as the film concludes kind of makes it worth it, creating a creepy, if predictable twist that ends the film on a very nihilistic and, dare I say, sinister note.
The film is marketed as a horror film, which, coming from Blumhouse, isn't surprising, but Sinister is as much a horror film as it is a crime thriller, as Ellison digs through and unearths evidence in the case and starts literally connecting the dots, as in with coloured string. To be honest, I enjoy this aspect of the film a lot, as boring as it may be to others, as your involvement in the story through Ellison lures you into these clues that he finds; when he watches the tapes, we are simply shown the tapes on full screen as if we are watching them ourselves, an incredibly minor detail that ends up being very useful in drawing the audience into the film's horror. Ellison is never a step ahead of the audience, he finds clues as we do, and we put the case together as he does, it's a fantastic balance that the film hits of never giving you all the answers but also never giving you none, it creates intrigue. The film's ability to immerse you in its mystery is very good for the film, given that the bad guy of the film, the mysterious Bughuul, isn't a particularly amazing villain. His presence in the film is very minimal in fact, and the legends we are told of him are vague as all hell. The idea of him living in images of himself is kind of cool and kind of stupid, and the film does contradict this idea a few times, the film also contradicts common sense a few times in this notion of Bughuul living in the images, particularly when Ellison looks away from his computer and the picture of Bughuul on the screen turns and looks at him, which, when taken out of context, is a bit pathetic and very funny. The film's lack of Bughuul does work out in my opinion however, as does the ambiguity of him, he is a mystery; we don't know how he chooses his victims or where he takes them, we don't know how long he's been around, nor do know if he is beatable, the only solid answers we are given is that Ellison and his family are not the first, nor will they be the last, creating an urgency to the threat that carries on after the credits role. The film is still weak in some aspects regarding Bughuul, outside of the ambiguity, some of the things he does are silly, and he doesn't really look that scary, in fact he looks more like a Halloween costume than a demon, and unlike someone like Michael Myers, there's no real subtext in his appearance, he's just a creepy guy, despite being the central threat of the film, Bughuul ultimately ends up being underwhelming.
Something Sinister gets right sometimes and wrong other times is the horror, more specifically, the film uses jumpscares when I'm so sure it needs them. The primary source of horror in the film is the tapes that Ellison watches, home video recordings of the various murders that Bughuul had a hand in, and not one of these tapes is mild or forgettable, not one. The first one you see brands itself onto your eyeballs instantly, and the rest only get worse from there, until you get to the one with the lawnmower, which is easily the scariest part of the film for me, because fuck that. Adding to the horror of the tapes is their lack of extravagance, none of them are gory, none of the kills are elaborate or over the top, despite depicting unfathomable horror, they all look authentically homemade, they look real, which makes the kills so much more disturbing. Add onto that the psychological element of them; the visceral discomfort and agony from the very thought of dying like even half the people who die in this film do and the torment of being completely powerless to stop it. This is something that most people would overlook while watching this film, but even they will get a feeling because of it, the tapes will stick with them not because they're gory or elaborate or in your face, but because they fuck with your mind. The final twist also adds a whole new layer to it that to even vaguely hint at would ruin the film's ending, so I'm not going there. The tapes are undoubtedly the meat of this film's horror, because elsewhere the film has a habit of relying on horror tropes with middling execution. The film has several jumpscares and to its credit, it doesn't clog its own arteries with false scares, what's weird is all the times there's a jarring audio cue when one wasn't really necessary; for example there's a sequence with ghosts in the house that would have been a lot creepier in my opinion is there wasn't a loud bong every time something moved, and like the scene with Bughuul and the computer, when taken out of context, these ghosts lose practically all of their scariness. The film also has a final jumpscare that the very end that is completely pointless and frankly stupid, but hey, jumpscares are scary, right? even when they serve literally no purpose and contradict the film's story. How it ultimately works out with Sinister is that despite being marketed as a supernatural horror, it's the supernatural element that is the film's weakest link in terms of horror, where the film becomes a typical horror that isn't very special, meanwhile the tapes in their comparative simplicity end up being the twisted, frightening shit that makes you squirm, the stuff that's actually scary.
They are better this way
Sinister is a mixed bag, in some ways there isn't really anything special about it; the average joe characters and predictable and shallow supernatural horror, not to mention to forgettable villain. But in other ways it is brilliant; in its ability to immerse the viewer and the abject terror of the tapes, moments that are easily among the most unsettling and memorable sequences in the last decade or so's contributions to the genre. It has things about it that are terrifying and truly special, then there are other times where it just isn't. But it does regain some lost ground in a gripping mystery that's a lot of fun to follow Ellison on his journey through. Sinister's greatest strength is much too strong to pass up on if you like to be scared, and since Horror is such a fascinating and entertaining genre to me, I admire Sinister a fair bit, it's worth watching.
The film is marketed as a horror film, which, coming from Blumhouse, isn't surprising, but Sinister is as much a horror film as it is a crime thriller, as Ellison digs through and unearths evidence in the case and starts literally connecting the dots, as in with coloured string. To be honest, I enjoy this aspect of the film a lot, as boring as it may be to others, as your involvement in the story through Ellison lures you into these clues that he finds; when he watches the tapes, we are simply shown the tapes on full screen as if we are watching them ourselves, an incredibly minor detail that ends up being very useful in drawing the audience into the film's horror. Ellison is never a step ahead of the audience, he finds clues as we do, and we put the case together as he does, it's a fantastic balance that the film hits of never giving you all the answers but also never giving you none, it creates intrigue. The film's ability to immerse you in its mystery is very good for the film, given that the bad guy of the film, the mysterious Bughuul, isn't a particularly amazing villain. His presence in the film is very minimal in fact, and the legends we are told of him are vague as all hell. The idea of him living in images of himself is kind of cool and kind of stupid, and the film does contradict this idea a few times, the film also contradicts common sense a few times in this notion of Bughuul living in the images, particularly when Ellison looks away from his computer and the picture of Bughuul on the screen turns and looks at him, which, when taken out of context, is a bit pathetic and very funny. The film's lack of Bughuul does work out in my opinion however, as does the ambiguity of him, he is a mystery; we don't know how he chooses his victims or where he takes them, we don't know how long he's been around, nor do know if he is beatable, the only solid answers we are given is that Ellison and his family are not the first, nor will they be the last, creating an urgency to the threat that carries on after the credits role. The film is still weak in some aspects regarding Bughuul, outside of the ambiguity, some of the things he does are silly, and he doesn't really look that scary, in fact he looks more like a Halloween costume than a demon, and unlike someone like Michael Myers, there's no real subtext in his appearance, he's just a creepy guy, despite being the central threat of the film, Bughuul ultimately ends up being underwhelming. 
No comments:
Post a Comment