Sinister (2012)

All Critics (129) | Top Critics (25) | Fresh (82) | Rotten (47) | DVD (4)

More stupid than scary, Sinister can't even figure out who its real demon is.

October 13, 2012 Full Review | Comments (32)

Peter Howell

Toronto Star

Top Critic

It comes together with a gruesome though excellent ending that some will find difficult to shake.

October 12, 2012 Full Review

Kevin C. Johnson

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Top Critic

A mixed bag of old-school and contemporary horror tricks that occasionally raises a hair prickle of intrigue.

October 12, 2012 Full Review | Comment (1)

Liam Lacey

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

Despite some effective bumps and frights, and at least one memorable jolt from a full-throated D'Addario, "Sinister" is mainly just a series of snuff-reels with sick-joke titles ...

October 12, 2012 Full Review

Rafer Guzman

Newsday

Top Critic

C'mon, Ethan Hawke, you're better than this. Isn't there a "Before Sunset" sequel that needs your attention?

October 12, 2012 Full Review | Comments (4)

Sara Stewart

New York Post

Top Critic

The hero of "Sinister" is almost unaccountably dumb. So, unfortunately, is the movie.

October 12, 2012 Full Review | Comments (14)

Michael O'Sullivan

Washington Post

Top Critic

One of the more authentically scary horror thrillers to haunt the screen in some time, a product of smart filmmaking, intriguing premise and a great lead performance from Ethan Hawke.

June 11, 2013 Full Review

Matthew Pejkovic

Matt's Movie Reviews

Highly effective, tense little fright rouser... If you're a horror fan, you won't be disappointed.

June 10, 2013 Full Review

Jim Schembri

3AW

Hawke brings a gravitas to the role of parent and home protector that is of far greater interest than the film itself.

June 2, 2013 Full Review

Ed Gibbs

The Sunday Age

Sinister is a subtle, poetic inquisition into the hypnotic power of horrific images ... oh and it's frightening entertainment at its best.

May 31, 2013 Full Review

Blake Howard

2UE That Movie Show

The much loved Ethan Hawke finds himself in a cheap and cheerless horror film watching images of murders and trying to find the boogie-man before the bad acting around him causes him too much grief.

May 27, 2013 Full Review

Simon Weaving

Screenwize

I especially like inventive horror concepts, or those with a bizarre sense of humour. Sinister has the former: inventiveness, which is increasingly difficult to create in a genre as enormous as horror

May 26, 2013 Full Review

Andrew L. Urban

Urban Cinefile

Sinister overcomes an iffy script to reel you in with one seriously creepy vibe.

February 15, 2013 Full Review

Steve Newton

Georgia Straight

It owes more than a debt of gratitude to The Shining and The Ring, among others, but Derrickson processes the chilling influences into an eerie experience mindful of the significance of projected images watched alone in the dark.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

Mark Pfeiffer

Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

Is it scary? Creepy is more like it. "Sinister" makes you feel uneasy, lulls you into sleepy mode and then slaps you with a couple of cheap scares.

November 3, 2012 Full Review

Paul Chambers

Movie Chambers

Hawke is utterly convincing as the driven but dodgy writer and Derrickson has great fun infecting the quivering audience with his hero's creeping paranoia.

October 30, 2012 Full Review

Andy Lea

Daily Star

Ethan Hawke creates a believable character who wants to write a best seller, but that is the only thing in this movie that rings true or logical.

October 23, 2012 Full Review | Comments (3)

Jackie K. Cooper

jackiekcooper.com

has the all too rare virtue of being a horror film with a fine gloss of originality and genuine surprise to it

October 22, 2012 Full Review

Andrea Chase

Killer Movie Reviews

Scary but contrived... .

October 20, 2012 Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Falls short of great horror

October 20, 2012 Full Review

Robert Denerstein

Movie Habit

Derrickson is a sharp stylist who knows how to meld dreadful imagery with actual ideas that make his horror films more than just exercises in goose-the-audience manipulation

October 19, 2012 Full Review

James Kendrick

Q Network Film Desk

Writer/director Scott Derrickson has a touch for using old horror movie tools to create new scares, and he also incorporates several interesting themes into Sinister.

October 19, 2012 Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Common Sense Media

A most delicious kind of horror movie... gives us a nice adrenaline boost and otherwise doesn't linger.

October 18, 2012 Full Review

Tim Brayton

Antagony & Ecstasy

Writer-director Scott Derrickson does absolutely nothing right.

October 18, 2012 Full Review

Jim Lane

Sacramento News & Review

Sinister isn't perfect, but it easily tops most of its scare-starved competition.

October 18, 2012 Full Review

Alexandra Cavallo

Boston Phoenix

If we define ["sinister"] as meaning, "ominous, forbidding, portending of doom," the film starts well enough, with suggestions of dark and sinister events to come; but soon other words creep into mind: stolid, sluggish, tedious.

October 17, 2012 Full Review

Steve Biodrowski

Cinefantastique

• 1. Ellison: Tracy, nobody died here. It's not like we're sleeping where somebody was killed or they had to wipe blood off the walls for the open house.
  2. Tracy: You're saying it didn't happen here?
  3. Ellison: No, no. It happened in the backyard.
  4. Tracy: That is so sick! God, you think that makes a difference?
  – Submitted by David S (44 days ago)
• 1. Ashley: Don't worry Daddy, I'll make you famous again.
  – Submitted by Andrew D (2 months ago)
• 1. Tracy: There are plenty of other ways you can provide for this family.
  2. Ellison: Doing what? Teaching? Editing journalism textbooks? Don't you understand that writing is what gives my life meaning? These books are my legacy!
  3. Tracy: I have always supported you doing what you love, Ellison. But writing isn't the meaning of your life. You and me, right here, this marriage: that's the meaning of your life. And your legacy? That's Ashley and Trevor. Your kids are your legacy.
  – Submitted by Nadia S (4 months ago)
• 1. Tracy: Do you understand what you've done this time? The kind of jeopardy you've put your children in? Your marriage?
  2. Ellison: Yes! I do!
  3. Tracy: Is there anything you won't do for your goddamn book?!
  – Submitted by Nadia S (4 months ago)
• 1. Ellison: We have found you in a box...
  2. Trevor: A box?
  3. Ellison: Shall I tell you about that time you tried to pee in the dryer?
  – Submitted by Wouter V (7 months ago)
• 1. Ellison: Oh my god, it's the missing kids...
  – Submitted by Matthew C (7 months ago)