Film Friday Special: Sinister (2012)
Disclaimer: My reviews are unfiltered reactions that I write down while watching a movie. I normally refer to characters by the actors’ names, so don’t be confused. And obviously, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
We’re off to a great start! “Honey, please tell me we’re not living two doors down from the crime scene!” – “Of course, not!” (“We’re living INSIDE the crime scene”)
WTF is this place?! I could buy one family “accidentally” getting strangled by a tree (with one girl still missing), but this next family getting burned alive in a locked car that’s not just locked but chained up from the outside. I’ve never seen anything like this, honestly…
Oh, dude… You’re not gonna alert the police, are you? Cause if you do, they’ll make you move and you don’t get to write your book. Which, of course, is more important than keeping your family alive. Sure, makes sense.
Oh, Ethan… How dumb do you have to be? You have now seen three families being murdered in the most gruesome of ways, and you’re still not moving to Norway?!?!?!? Or anywhere that’s far-far away from this place. And now the boy has drawn a picture of the four people hanging from a tree. That’s nice.
It seems that more than one murdered family has a child missing. Not sure if it’s all of them, but definitely the last family that got hanged, and the family that got their throats cut.
And now the lights are suddenly out and there is creaking in the ceiling. GET OUT!!! Seriously, can’t he find another job besides writing true crime stories? At least when you work at McDonald’s nobody wants to brutally murder your family.
Oh no… He should not have said that he would rather cut off his hands than write a book for money and success! Mr Boogie hears it all…
The family that got burned alive also had a kid who went missing when everybody else was killed. Is Mr Boogie collecting kids?
And now he looked at Ethan!!! Fucking turned his head on the photo and looked at him!!! GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And your child keeps having night terrors and walking around outside and crawling into boxes… And that’s not enough for you to leave? And now there’s a hound from hell… Oh shit.
So all of the missing kids are hanging out together, that’s nice.
This cute little police officer is so cute and smol. And he really wants to help.
Oh crap, the lawnmower scene was… effective. I tensed up so hard. Great minimalist filmmaking.
I’m so glad to see Vincent D’Onofrio every time! He has a very reassuring presence.
Meanwhile, the projector keeps turning on at the witching hour – do we need any more warning signs?! Ethan, you are dealing with an actual demon. RUN!!!!!
Although, in defence of this movie’s logic, it’s too late for them to run, as evidenced by the infestation of child ghosts. Of course, Ethan can’t see them but he can feel their presence, but his daughter can see a girl ghost who’s drawing bizarre things on her wall. I wonder if the drawings will stay in the morning.
Overall: So… no happy ending here. Ethan’s daughter got possessed and had a “House painting” party. Which was the bloodiest scene in an otherwise blood-and-guts free movie. I know they were hoping for a PG-13 rating which explains their choices but come on! This isn’t safe for kids to watch for sure. Not safe for adults either, but hey, we make our own terrible choices.
Not that this movie was terrible, far from it. Very cool, very scary, memorable and at least partly fresh. Like, it’s almost impossible to do anything new in filmmaking anymore, and the horror genre is built on cliches, but at least this is an original concept and not a remake or something. There is a sequel that i don’t feel like watching so as not to ruin my experience with this movie.
All in all, I highly recommend this movie!
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