Sinister (2012)

Sinister is an interesting outlier in the Blumhouse catalog. It followed hits like Paranormal Activity and Insidious, which netted the production company hundreds of millions, and though Sinister also racked in the $$$, it never got the same franchise treatment. It has the veneer of a straightforward boogey-man/haunted house horror story, with creepy kids and jump scares, but thanks to a few key players, it stands out from similar films in the genre.

Director Scott Derrickson really uses the aesthetics of super 8 film and projector lighting to his advantage, creating rich silhouettes and terrifying dark voids. The sound of the projector stays front and center, and when combined with the uniquely unsettling score from veteran horror composer Christopher Young, the whole thing leaves me shaking.

Ethan Hawke brings a lot of depth to this movie, and I really like how he embodies a man who is both loving and selfish. It’s the tension between his love for his family and his drive for fame that makes his fear so believable, and Derrickson always chooses to keep the camera focused on Hawke’s reaction to the violence. In interviews, Hawke said he was apprehensive to ‘play fear — it’s not really passionate or sexy, it doesn’t feel good either’, he explained to several outlets. He also was unsure how to ‘make something scary’, but was convinced when Derrickson explained ‘well if you can make him real, then I’ll make it scary’. The final product is a kind of nesting dolls/meta-horror, a reflection of horror fans everywhere; we consume horror, are horrified, and then go back for more.
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