Review of Sinister (2012) by Harry W — 10 Dec 2015

Sinisteris a movie where its not so much what the characters are saying, but what you see, or don't see, that creates the atmosphere intended.

Sinister is presented as a movie about the Boogeyman, a figure that has haunted children for ages, but the way the movie plays out the Boogeyman seems to more of a rarely seen, rarely mentioned background character. The movie itself is based around a murder mystery writer determined to get another shot at fame, and his realization that sometimes there is more to what one sees.

While watching this film I found myself completely focused on what was happening. Not because of the characters or the story, but because of how it was being told with light and shadows. Our main character starts off in the shadows, in the dark, as he has no knowledge of what has transpired. As the story progresses, as he learns what has happened and has been happening for years, his characters starts being presented in the light. The same can be seen with different characters, the lighting they are portrayed in represents the knowledge they possess.

After watching so many movies where every little detail is given to me by the characters, I found this to be a refreshing twist on enlightening the audience as to the mental states and revelations that the characters have without actually telling me. I also found it refreshing that, although it is heavily implied through carefully shot scenes in the home movies, the movie did not present me with scenes showing distasteful amounts of blood and gore. Instead the director has left that to the imagination, showing only enough to give the audience the evidence they need to know that something very bad has happened.

All in all, I found this movie to be a wonderful twist on the common horror movie. It was well written, chalk full of literary devices and took an interesting take on the Boogeyman. While there were a couple moments that had me jumping I did not feel like I was meant to be scared the entire movie, and I enjoyed learning about major plot points at the same time as the characters did. I can only hope that Sinister inspires a new trend in the horror movie genre.