Sinister
2012
**½
Director: Scott Derrickson
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Fred Thompson, James Ransone, Clare Foley, Michael Hall D'Addario, Nick King, Vincent D'Onofrio
In preparation for his next book, a true crime writer moves his family to a house where four people were killed. In the attic, he discovers a box of old home movies, which depict the gruesome murders of different families. Scott Derrickson's horror movie has an intriguing if not terribly original premise, but it's all slow downhill from there onwards. Every night, the writer experiences spooky and mysterious events in the dark nooks of the house, but during the day he fails to go out and buy a decent flashlight. His wife would probably sleep through nuclear holocaust. Once it's clear that something supernatural is involved, the outcome becomes inevitable and irrelevant. In the end, only Ethan Hawke's performance maintains the initial promise. Followed by a 2015 sequel.
