Sinister (2012)

  

I went to this movie without knowing what it was about. That's pretty incredible for me as I am the kind of person that has to read the last chapter in a book before I even get half-way through, because I don't like too much suspense. How that works with my obsession with scary movies, doesn't really make sense, because that's what scary movies are about: suspense. Sure, okay, I contradict myself, but in the words of Walt Whitman "I am large, I contain multitudes" (Song of Myself). Therefore, I'm not going to think too much about it, I'll just accept myself the way I am, but I digress. . .  

Sinister started off . . . well . . . sinister; menacing, blackhearted, disquieting, foreboding, and disturbing. The opening scene begins with a family of four, standing shoulder-to-shoulder under a tree. Brown rucksacks have been placed over their heads, their hands are tied behind their backs, and the most sinister element of all: they each have a noose around their neck. The nooses are rigged up and around the tree and tied to a lower-hanging branch, that, when cut, lifts the family into their air. In slow motion you watch as the family struggles, each kicking and jerking, until one-by-one they cease to move. 

Although, not entirely sold on the movie at this point, my interest was at least piqued.

Okay, so I feel I have to qualify that statement; I have a slight neurotic tendency to analyze everything - thanks to my years as an English lit major (p.s. don't judge my writing on that little piece of disclosed information, I'm a literature major, not a writing major) - a neurotic tendency that has made it rather hard to just sit back and enjoy a movie at face value. I probably would have enjoyed this movie a little more if I didn't automatically want to consider Structuralism, Linguistics, and Narratology - granted, I wouldn't have it any other way; I rather enjoy putting on my Foucault glasses, but I think I may have lost the ability to slip into the unreality of a movie - the ability to make the reality of the movie my own reality, and I think that is why I don't get scared anymore . . . but what does this have to do with this particular movie? I may have gone on too much of a tangent here . . . what was my point? 

I guess my point is, I was only slightly impressed by the opening scene, I wasn't going to freak out about it because, let's face it, when someone wants to do something for shock value, it loses its shock value. I'm not saying it didn't set up the movie nicely, I just wasn't going to get my hopes up on the basis of an opening scene that, to me, was trying too hard. And I was right not to get too excited, because the very next scene completely disappointed me. It took me back to that godawful G.I. Joe with Channing Tatum ( I spent that whole movie literally staring at the corner fabric around the screen - partly because of a bad hangover, but mostly because that movie sucked ass). 

I thought I was in for another two hours of staring off into nothingness, wishing I hadn't drank as much as I had the night before, when the hokey, cliched scene of the protagonist, in the process of moving his family into a new home, is told by the disgruntled, small town sheriff to "pack up [his] things and go back where [he] came from" made its appearance. Gah! Seriously? All we needed was the family to be in an RV and the sheriff to be the creepy attendant at a broken-down gas station in the middle of fucking nowhere, and we'd be set. Needless to say, my hopes plummeted at this scene. 

However, my dear friends, hope does float (whatever that means, amiright?) this movie is not all that bad. In fact, it gets much better. It's centered on Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawk - hubba hubba) a True Crime novelist (one of my favorite genres) who moves into the house of the family that had been murdered at the beginning of the movie, in order to do research for his next book. Of course, scary weird things begin to happen and Mr. Oswalt almost goes insane. 

The story is rather intriguing, there are plenty of jumpy moments, and the bloody, shocking scenes, make up for the lame-ass beginning, but unfortunately, the movie just couldn't keep up with itself.

The ending is, in itself, completely unexpected and chilling - in theory, however, in practice, it was just cheesy. I understand that making a truly scary movie is almost impossible, so I don't hold it against the creators, but, let's face it, this is just a one-time only kind of film. If you watch it more than once, you'll find that the story can't hold itself together, because it wants to go in all sorts of directions. It's not as bad as the Grudge which just flashed scary images at random for no reason, but Sinister loses itself somewhere in the last few scenes, and it could be rather disappointing if you think about it too long. Which I do. All the time.