Sinister: Meaning Adjective. A Threatening or portending evil.
Sinister can describe a person or intentions. It can even describe an entity. Sinister follows the Washed-up true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt and his family moving into the recent murder house of a family. Ellison has not written what is in his mind a best seller since his first book Kentucky Blood. He hopes by moving into the house he can investigate the murders and spawn inspiration from them. He keeps this minor detail from his wife and children. There is hardly anything sinister of him aside from the fact very few people would be happy about moving into a murder home; be it a nice little retro home or not.
Ellison and his family are similar to any family. The kids and Wife are used to him taking them places of utmost creepiness. The toll on the children is hard. You truly feel sorry for them when you think about how many times they’ve had to move. You may just look at that or look at the fact that their dad writing the things he does takes a toll on them psychologically. You don’t need to be a child psychologist to see how screwy lui Trevor is especially. This is the human spice in the story. Officer So and So is part of the pepper. He’s not referred to by his name as Elli must have short term memory loss and even puts him as a contact in his phone as Officer So and So. This officer is a likable rooky. If Elli let him come over to occupy the kiddos he definitely gives the vibe he will and have fun on off duty time.
The Super 8 Box is strategically placed in the spacey attic within trappable distance of the entrance. Think of this as Pandora’s box with Films cursed with bad JuJu. People now days don’t readily watch Super 8 films anymore with VHS and DVDs. Eill is able to operate it just fine without a manual. Any other clumsy person would screw up in trying to make the runner work. Hell if you’re like this yutz you will rip and or bend the films too. The Twilight Zone door is opened as soon as Elli gives the films a look see in his study enjoying what looks like whiskey. He adamantly figures it’s 5 o’clock somewhere apparently. The method is displayed as a coping method that he will need the more he looks at the acts of the films. It’s half shown to us and half reflected in Elli’s glasses. This is an interesting effect that teases the audience a bit. What is shocking to everyone is how up close and personal these films are. The film is so welly preserved Elli is able to take images and footage from the Super 8 Machine and transfer it to his nifty apple computer. This is believable if you are truly tech savvy and have the right equipment.
Don’t try this at home by yourself.
The Goose Bumps are just popping up as the gutless author draws ensuing conclusions of the films are in fact documentation of actual murders that have taken place from 1960 -1980. The reports are chilling as they depict a child from each family was never found dead or alive. They just vanished and still aren’t accounted for to this day. They are all given up as dead. Elli exploits the Deputy to an extent to dig deeper into the police records. Inspiration should be grabbing and shaking him by now shouldn’t it? Elli’s just not feeling it yet. The missing hits on any nerve a regular parent has.
The more he looks at the films he picks out an odd figure standing in the background in all black. Reflected in the water, a mirror or just outside a doorway the pale spectator has a Slenderman feel to it. It’s pictures delight in moving when one isn’t looking to look at the person. Fingers and questions start pointing at this stranger that is in every super 8 film. There has to be an explanation for this weirdo being there. He must have a thing for happy families which have children to spare. Rational explanations are used as a chew toy and trampled on for sure by the other wierd shiz going down around the house. A dangerously patterned snake in the attic, a strange rottweiler appearing from nowhere to bark at the ghost children Elli can’t see; falling through the bloody ceiling like Tim The ToolMan and don’t forget the damn Super 8 suddenly becomes self-operable.
The children must be dead to be doing this right? They’re haunting the house and maybe tall and creepy too. You don’t just see someone in your bushes a split second then when you get outside with a baseball bat they’re just gone like a ninja. The children begin acting strange. Trevor is too old to have night terrors teetering on thirteen yet they are worse than ever. The kid winds up in a box folded like an origami then comes out screaming. What the hell night terror causes someone to do that? The Kid must be a sleep walker. Ashly has an imaginary girl she talks to as well as paints. Her knowing Stephanie’s family was the people who were murdered there blows Elli’s operation wide open. They couldn’t possibly know anything so crucial about the house without help. Every mother will side with Judy over wanting to maim her husband for not telling them they moved into the house of a murdered family. Ellison is coming off as a prick focusing so much on the big bucks that will roll in if he writes a grand book. He will not acknowledge something is rotten in Denmark. Even more unsettling events fallow before he breaks down and decides to move back to their old house.
Elli’s move of burning the super 8 and film casings is a smart idea. After all the Professor he reached out to at the university stated the entity he continues to see moves within them. Yes It’s name is Bughuul and He eats children's souls. The symbols drawn everywhere in the murder films are his summoning card. It takes a professor at a university to make mr.Unbeliever realize how serious things are. By the act of moving out of the house back to their old one he hopes to protect his children. His last book will just have to wait. The life of his children aren’t worth it.
Officer so and So continues calling Ellison while they’re moving back. It is trusted the man does know how to leave a message on a phone or text. He does neither. A dark and scary storm gives a returning sense of creepiness. Ellison finally picked up his cell phone to bring in the final blow of other worldliness: the pattern of the murders were all made by the family's attempt at moving away from the danger. Their children must have been acting strange as well. Once the family moved and felt safe Bughuul used the children to kill their families before disappearing. If he had just picked up that phone sooner he may have avoided this.
The Good Night Daddy note left under Ellison’s coffee mug is easily missed until he picks up his mug. The strange liquid inside looks like anti-freez instead of a sleep inducing drug. We are dismayed that Trevor, being the oldest and most likely best instrument of doing Bughuuls bidding; is in fact not being used. Bughuul most likely induced his night terrors so he was paid more attention to Ashly. The adorable, ginger haired girl Ashly ends up wielding an ax at her bound family. You have to admit that is a very ballsy twist bringing everything together. Both Ashly and Trevor have succumbed to Bughuul's influence from exposure to the Super 8 Films that were most likely run by the dead kids.
Sinister is a straightforward horror ghost movie with a mixture of a Demi God turned boogeymen man still devouring children. The Scars and SGI is appropriately placed. It doesn’t over run. The jump scares are to be expected however the absence of suspenseful music would still make it frightening. The wife and children are the most connective aspects. Ellison is only human and a writer but you really do hope he gets the sense knocked into him. Horror cliches are still there if you look but you can’t entirely escape them. The sinister being is just that, a boogie lurking around the corner shadows only children are susceptible to. There is a question of what will happen if a couple moves in without a child. Is the couple safe until they have children?
In over all analysis I give Sinister 4 super Eights out of 5.
Quirks & Kudos
- Elli's "Lucky Sweater" he doesn't part with it for weeks
- You can Google a Super 8 Store
- Elli's Analysis of the films
- Screw Genetics to hell let's have a Ginger kid in a Blond/ Brunet Family
- Ellison knows how to play a super 8 without a manual
- Law and Order's Vincint D On'nofirio is The Occult Crimes Professor
- Reporters not knowing the difference of Stabbing and Slitting throats
- Ellison being a boys name too
- Babylonians had one serious bad ass bogyman/ child eating Deity
- Mr. Bughuul's snazzy black suit seriously way to move with the times
- Pennsylvania screams coral snakes and scorpions
- A 13 yr old boy is still having night terrors
- Deputy So and So . . is just So and So
- Ethan Hawk being a Writer
- Bughuul's Harry Potter Portrait moving when Elli looks away
- A Rotti is in a positive light
