Sinister Reviews

Ellison's fascination with celluloid to solve a crime recalls Antonioni's Blowup, but Scott Derrickson is unable to conjure an aura that isn't as transparent and weightless as a ghost.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

That title is off the mark. Here's a better one: "Stupid."

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

In its plot and even its title, the movie feels like a grab bag of every popular horror trope of the last 30 years.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Its slow build is more dull than involving.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

It whiffs on a horror film fundamental: Nobody seems to be all that scared.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

[Villain] Mr. Boogie shows up too often to be effective, but is kept too mysterious to be interesting. Also, he looks like a heavy metal band's attempt to create their own Eddie-like mascot.

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Frankly, Ellison is an annoying prat and there aren't enough scares or story developments to keep you hooked, though the ending works well.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

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.

Full Review | Original Score: C

It turns found footage into a lost opportunity

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

Sinister' may make you jump at predictable intervals, but it never rattles your existential certainties the way truly subversive horror does.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

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.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Passage to the solid stuff is blocked by brazenly cheap scares, a hazy monster mythos, unreasonably idiotic characters, and excessive length, making Sinister an absolute chore to enjoy in full.

Full Review | Original Score: C

Writer-director Scott Derrickson does absolutely nothing right.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

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

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

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

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

The ensuing plot has the cogency of one of those dishes you cook up, one inspiration-free night, from everything left over in the fridge.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

This so-so, occasionally effective horror film combines found-footage creepiness and haunted-house scares - but is stronger on mood than story.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

The psychological vagaries of real people who commit terrible crimes and real people who investigate them are not in the cards here, not when the unaccountable supernatural can be hauled in...

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...if the plot logic falls completely apart with the first question you ask yourself and continues to unravel with the second, any scares that have been manufactured lose the residual effect they may have had.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

It's an ominous beginning to a fright-filled fortnight.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10