It’s spooky season everyone! You know what that means: cool weather, warm coats, and an escape from the brutal Mississippi heat. I long for the days of trick-or-treating with Halloween costume student section themes, and the old Halloween antics. However, there is still one Halloween aspect that I do not like: scary movies. I absolutely hate scary movies. Why, you may ask? Well to me it’s simple… THEY’RE VERY SCARY. Who enjoys putting themselves through torture? Raising my stress levels for fun? Couldn’t be me… so many of my friends sit there and laugh at me when they force me to watch scary movies; then, they laugh at the scary movie!
I will never understand. Just to put it in perspective, the last scary movie I watched I was begging my girlfriend to leave the theatre halfway through the movie. I promised her some ice cream to reimburse the movie ticket if we could just leave. Alas, my torture and pain was more fun to her than a Dairy Queen Blizzard. All this being said, it is October, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t incorporate Halloween somehow. So, I have decided to watch the movie Sinister… I know nothing about this movie, I am so incredibly scared, and I am so disappointed in myself for doing this. Wish me luck, and enjoy my Halloween movie experience.
25 minutes: Nothing too scary too far. Ellison Oswalt is a true crime writer that has just moved his family into a new house. It appears to be the house where a whole family was just murdered except for the youngest daughter—who is missing. It also appears that Ellison released a massively successful book ten years ago and is searching for another success, leading him to move directly into the house of the crime scene. Overall, there’s been some creepy stuff, the house is always super dark, and Ellison’s daughter paints some pretty weird stuff. For the sake of spoilers, I will try to limit the amount of details in my next updates and solely fill you in on the amount of terror I will most likely be in.
26 minutes: I apparently paused at a very good time, because I am now very scared, lots of screaming—which is not a lot of fun for me. Especially when it’s a child coming out of a box upside down screaming at the top of his lungs. Plus, some people in the hall outside just started yelling too, so hopefully my reality isn’t becoming construed.
46 minutes: just when my stress levels couldn’t get higher, there was a snake. He finally went in the attic where there have been strange noises coming from all movie, even against my wishes as I begged him to just stay downstairs. Just went and got my bag of powdered donuts for comfort.
1 hour: Half way there, time is moving horribly slow, not having fun, things are getting very scary, powdered donuts aren’t helping enough. However, I am very interested in these films that keep getting left for Ellison. Sure, they are horribly gruesome, but trying to track Baghuul in these films and figure out how it is going to get Ellison is very engaging!
1:25: I have reached the climax of the movie and paused it to record how I’m feeling before whatever is about to happen happens. This time the noises from the attic are very loud and the ladder to go up there is already down!! This can’t be good, a couple of minutes ago there were some half-decayed children moving around the house, so hopefully this isn’t their return. Either way, I’m not feeling very good about what is about to come.
1:35: WOW that was scary!! Sadly, I was right about the children’s return. However, our man Ellison wised up and got everyone out of the house. However, there are still 15 minutes left, so I can only imagine what is in store.
ITS OVER, I survived. Let me say, the ending of that movie was not at all what I expected. Overall, this movie really succeeded my expectations. Much more than just pop-outs and cheap scares like other horror films, this one really dives deep into Ellison’s character. A once successful author that puts his desperation to revive his career before his family’s safety. Where will he stop when his investigation into a murdered family of four goes far beyond where he intended? Along with some very compelling detective work, cinematography, and an overall good plot, I would definitely recommend this movie to a friend. I really enjoyed watching Ellison track the crimes of “Mr. Boogie” through the videos left for him of the gruesome family murders. In addition, I found it interesting to observe his mental state deteriorate as he slowly realized that he was not dealing with a human murderer, but an other-worldly demon.
I was also very compelled with the main antagonist that only makes a handful of appearances in the movie. I thought it was impressive how it had such a large effect on the plot without even being seen, but rather by leading Ellison on and on to discover the truth about the murders all the way up to the very end when it was too late for him to stop his fate. There were also so many times during the movie where the camera would zoom out a little, and I would think a pop-out was coming, but nothing would happen. Camera work like this kept me on the edge of my seat the entire movie and never left me a chance to relax. It was just a very well-done movie in my opinion, and it seems they put a lot of effort to make it not like every other scary movie. It was so good that it actually made me consider for a second watching Sinister II, which is honestly impressive considering how much I dread watching scary movies!
