Sinister Film Analysis

SINISTER FILM ANALYSISSinister is a 2012 supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill and stars Ethan Hawke. It follows true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt, played by Hawke, as he discovers a box of home movies that puts his family in danger. Sinister premiered at the SXSW festival, and was released in the United States on October 12, 2012, and in the UK on October 5, 2012.

Sinister is one of my personal favourite horror films because of it's unique concept. The tapes found in the attic are so realistic and shocking that they have a big impact on the audience, the names on them are happy family memories, but the names are purely misleading. For example a tape titled "family BBQ" first displays a family barbecue in a park at daytime, but switches to a family tied up in a car in a garage at night, which is then set alight with them inside.

The film plays on fears of horrible deaths and yet does not portray blood and gore like a typical simple horror. The scenes of murder seem even more disturbing nonetheless, and are accompanied by unnerving soundtracks and intense close up shots. The use of 8mm film and handheld camera from the view point of the murderer is extremely effective, making us feel involved in the scene, but somehow still managing to make us fear intensely for the victims.


USP-Writer C. Robert Cargill says that his inspiration for the movie came from a nightmare he experienced after seeing The Ring, in which he discovered a film in his attic depicting the hanging of an entire family. This scenario became the setup for the plot of Sinister. In creating a villain for the film, Cargill conceptualized a new take on the Bogeyman, calling the entity "Mr. Boogie". Cargill's idea was that the creature would be both terrifying and seductive to children, luring them to their dooms as a sinister Willy Wonka-like figure. Cargill and co-writer Scott Derrickson ultimately decided to downplay the creature's alluring nature, only intimating how it manipulates the children into murder. In further developing Mr. Boogie, the pair had lengthy discussions about its nature, deciding not to make it a demon but rather a pagan deity, in order to place it outside the conceptual scope of any one particular religion. Consequently, the villain was given the proper name "Bughuul", with only the child characters in the film referring to it as Mr. Boogie. Though this may sound comical in some ways, the idea is unusual, and portraying a child to murder his/her own family is horrific in the film.


Soundtracks play a key part in the film. Unusual, fragmented non-diegetic sound accompanies the murder tapes and keep the audience on edge. The sound is not music as such , but uses single sounds or effects on repeat which almost create a rhythm. In one scene a videotape plays a happy family video accompanied with upbeat piano music, and when the film changes to the murder scene the soundtrack changes into something slow and tense.

The way in which the film is made, eg. camera angles and transitions, as well as editing techniques is very clever. There are a lot of close ups showing character expressions, and attention to detail. There are also a series of shot reverse shot sequences between the old video tapes playing and the reaction from the main character as he watches them. There is also the use of 8mm displaying the old family video tapes, to give them a home movie style appearance. This creates the effect that we are delving into someone's past, someone's private life. Editing is also cleverly used to enhance fear and tension. For example, some scenes seem to go on for longer than necessary, but in actual fact this causes the audience to fall into a short state of relaxation, so that the next shocking action then scares them even more. These kinds of techniques may be useful to bare in mind when creating my horror film trailer with my group.