Movie: Sinister

Okay, this is a first. Not that it's the first movie that I've ever watched, just the first movie that I'll be reviewing.

Sinister:
 

Hubby has been telling me about this new horror flick, which he said looks promising. We are somewhat horror-movie fanatics, with me favoring the ghost-ridden ones and him, the bloody gory varieties (Well, not always. He just really like the Saw franchise. A lot).

But more often than not, we are disappointed with how most horror movies turned out. Let's just say, we didn't get scared or "entertained" by most of them. Some felt like a rehashed of other movies even if the stories were different and others, if they didn't suffer from predictable plots or bad plots to begin with, were more of a comedy than a horror movie. Honestly, there were quite a few movies where instead of trembling with fear and being scared shit out of our brains, we were laughing our hearts out.

So. I finally saw the trailer of Sinister when we watched Taken 2. The movie looked solid and prompted me to checked its rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I thought it was good enough. I didn't checked on IMDB because I didn't want run into spoilers.

I went to see the movie armed with the knowledge that the main character, played by Ethan Hawke, is a writer and that they moved to a house where a family was murdered before. The trailer seemed to suggest that it's the house that's haunted and it's the daughter that's possessed, or at least she will play a key role in the haunting/possession/whatever it is that will take place in the house.

The movie opened to a good appetizer of a scene, setting a mood with intrigue and an impending horror. But as it unraveled, it became fairly predictable quicker than I expected. Which was a bad thing for me, because I love figuring out horror movies. More than the jumpy scenes and scare tactics, a good horror movie for me is where I am caught unaware of the plot twists and how it got there. Halfway through the movie, I knew I was bored.

And I kept asking hubby why in most horror movies, they won't turn the lights on. Would be a lot creepier if Ethan's character turned the light on and the ghost appeared an inch away from his face DESPITE the light. They should learn to do ghost makeup that looks good in the light.

If there's one thing that I liked about Sinister, it's the musical score. It's, well, very sinister and lent the necessary eerie background to some of the supposedly scary scenes (with that, I think there were just two). The ending was not happy but something that you knew would happen.

I really want to discuss more points about the movie but I couldn't find a way to do so without giving spoilers. So. Overall, it's okay I guess. Certainly not something that will keep me awake at night or spawn nightmares inside my head. Not something that will rank high up on my top horror movies list and not something that I will recommend to someone who wants more than the usual hair-raising movie experience. But I still think it's a decent horror movie.