Sinister

Sinister.
Sinister.
Sinister.

Quick lead up: a few days ago, I was trying to remember a movie that involved demonic possession and which had a truly frightening trailer. I did a search for recent movies involving demonic possession on Doogle* and, although I found what I was looking for**, my eye was drawn to another title.
Sinister.
I saw that it starred Ethan Hawke (no problems with him) and had been rather well received , plus, any movie title based on Latin makes me sweat, so I decided to check it out.

They had me at the opening shot.

I'm not going to spoil it, in case you haven't seen it, but I am going to share with you how great I thought it was.

First things first: the music and sound design.
The overall score, by Christopher Young, is very, very solid, not your typical strings and boring bullshit that you see in every other horror movie out there, but, where things really worked were during the home movies.
So, minor spoiler, the main character finds a box of 8mm films and, of course, since this is a horror movie and no one ever has any clue as to how bad an idea it is to watch a random box of fucking 8mm films, he watches them. While the films themselves don't have any sound, the director chose to score each one with a different piece of music.
I. Have never. Ever. Been more unsettled by anything. EVER.
The films, in complete silence, would have been disturbing, but, paired with these soundscapes?
I wanted the films to end so the music would stop and I wanted the music to stop so the films would end.

Then, there were the actors and their acting.
We've all seen horror movies where, clearly, something is wrong and yet the only people unable to sense this are the people in the movie; hence those ridiculous assholes who actually feel a need to yell at the screen.
Not the case with Sinister.
They all know something is wrong, but are held there for completely believable (to some extent) reasons.
As for the actors, Ethan Hawke does an excellent job of falling apart on screen while Juliet Rylance does an excellent job trying to hold him together. The kids playing their children also do a great job at not being child actors, although the decision to cast a boy with the most womanly hair I've seen in a while puzzled me.
There's even a quirky cop who plays it just quirky enough to neither stand out nor be forgotten.

Although I didn't love the ending, this has been the only horror movie to really get under my skin since In The Mouth Of Madness back in the 90's.
People, I was scared to be alone in my darkened apartment.

And, now that I have completely built it up, feel free to check it out and be disappointed.
Although...you know...even if you find everything else cheesy as hell...I challenge you not to be utterly undone by the sights and sounds of those god damn 8mm films.

I plan on having some people over soon to watch this.
With the lights out.
And with the 5.1 cranked.
BYO adult diapers.

Oh, yeah, and, before I took in this screaming bit of psychosis, I watched the director's cut of Daredevil, a.) because I haven't seen it in a while and I do enjoy me a superhero movie and, b.) because Jim fucking Potenza said that the director's cut made the movie better.
Silly, gullible hatchling that I am...I thought he was telling the truth and that an extra fifteen or twenty minutes of "darker" footage could make this movie less of a piece of shit.
I was wrong.
And Jim was wrong.
And Jim. Was wrong.
Best part of the movie was the (almost 100% improved) banter between Affleck and Favreau.
Worst part...hm.
Toss up between the bleeding edge Nu-Metal gub and the trite ass action movie dick-swinging.
I'd love to see a woman direct a dick-swinging action movie; a woman who gets it and is a fan of the genre but who also rolls her eyes at the shitty big dong schlock with which Daredevil was dripping.
Oh, and it was pretty clear that they wanted Brad Pitt for Bullseye but couldn't get him.

And that was last night.

Very soon, I plan to watch the last episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold and then move onto either Young Justice (first few minutes look pretty cool) or the first season of Arrow, of which I am far more pensive since I'm not up on my Green Arrow mythos and because live action superhero stuff is always a lot harder to nail...especially on TV.

BUT!
We will take this adventure together!
And together we- oh, you've left.
Okay.
Hm.

Well.





* Demonic Google

** The Devil Inside, which, apparently, is a piece of shit.