The Mycenaean

I am one of the last people to voluntarily see a scary movie; if I’m going to lose sleep over it, it better be worth it.

Sinister has all the elements of a classic scary movie: loud sounds, creepy-looking little girls, blood, gore, ghosts and terrifying special effects. However, Sinister was more of a mystery than a pure blood and gore film.

The film focuses on Ellison Oswalt, played by Ethan Hawke, who moves into a new home to investigate a cold case murder with his wife and two kids. While moving in, Oswalt goes into the attic and finds a box full of films with a camera. He assumes the tapes belonged to the previous homeowners and hopes they will help him solve the mystery of the murders.

They do much more than that.

Once Ellison starts watching the films, things start to change. He hears noises in the house at night, and goes up to the attic to investigate. There he finds missing children, whether they are ghosts or demons or actually children, we don’t know, accompanied by a terrifying-looking demon. The rest of the film deals with Ellison’s encounters with the demon as he struggles to solve the mystery.

Instead of having a random person kill a lot of people without any reason why, Sinister creates a well-developed explanation of why the murders are happening. There is some blood and gore, but it doesn’t dominate the film because it doesn’t have to. The weakest films overwhelm their viewers with disturbing images. Sinister has disturbing scenes, but what makes it more scary is the psychological aspect of it, not the visual.

The special effects in Sinister are phenomenal. Everything looks so real, even when it clearly is not. Almost all of the actors were believable, except the young deputy, played by James Ransone. Supposed to be an innocent, naive deputy, Ransone’s portrayal made him seem suspicious. His poor acting distracted me from paying attention to what was going on because the entire time I was trying to figure out what he was really up to.

Sinister, proves that all scary movies aren’t garbage. For once, a scary movie requires its viewers to think.

Sarah Bush, senior editor