In 2020, there was a study called “Science of Scare Project” designed to determined the scariest horror movie of all time. The study was deeply flawed, but it’s still interesting. By monitoring heart rate and beat variance they determined the movie “Sinister” as the winner. They’ve repeated it a few times, with Sinister gaining the top spot again this year. Naturally I wanted to see what the fuss was about. This is a Scott Derrickson horror. Scott has given us “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” (2005), “The Black Phone” (2021) and “The Gorge” (2025). C. Robert Cargill worked with Derrickson on the script. Christopher Norr provides cinematography and Christopher Young provides the score. Ethan Hawke takes the lead.
True crime writer “Ellison Oswalt” (Hawkes), is in pursuit of the story of his lifetime. He has just moved his family into the former home of the “Stevenson”, a family at the center of an unsolved multiple homicide. The entire family, save for a missing child was killed via hanging in the family garden. Ellison hasn’t shared any of this with his family. After a series of failed novels, he thinks this one could put him back on the best sellers list. In the attic of the house he finds a number of old film reels, each one containing evidence of a multiple homicide, including the one in the house. Instead of sharing this with the police he decides to break the case by himself. Unfortunately for him, something far more sinister is going on here.
Tension and Atmosphere
The movie does indeed provide a constant tense atmosphere. I didn’t really find it scary though. Obviously I’ve watched a lot of horror, but horror can work in many different ways. Here I wasn’t really sure what I was meant to be feeling. I wasn’t concerned for the family, I wasn’t unsettled by the concept and the death videos while individually disturbing were quite detached from the emotional part of the story. But I can’t deny the film had an atmosphere to it. Mostly in my view this came from the soundtrack. This is a dark, ambient score that drones and beats at just the right times to intensify everything you are seeing.
The pace is fairly slow, but relentless. This is probably why it scored so high on the heart monitor tests for that study. Through most of the movie you have a short lul followed by a build of tension (With that powerful soundtrack) and then some kind of jump scare. Rinse and repeat for the entire run time. The focus on Ellison though means the only character I actually invested in was him. But it’s also shown early on that Ellison is a glory hunting and virtue signaling hypocrite. So I don’t even like the one character I’m invested in. If this was something like “The Shining” or “Angel Heart” where we follow a characters descent to the darkness that would be fine. But that’s not the case here.
Cursed Videos
While watching this, I was reminded of the Japanese horror classic “Ring” (1998). There is a good reason for that it seems. The idea for Sinister came to Derrickson after watching that film and having a nightmare. Of course there are many films these days that involve discovering disturbing footage on old tape, VHS or other such mediums. There’s also a good number of horrors relating to witnessing something and thus being marked for death. A recent example of that is “Smile” (2022). So conceptually this isn’t a particular stand out, the question then becomes how well they executed the concept and this is a mixed bag.
Fairly early on in the film it is pretty obvious to me the direction it was going to go. The protagonist isn’t clued in to this though and it doesn’t dawn on him until it is too late that his family is in imminent danger. There’s a minor swerve at the end which didn’t really benefit the story and actually opened a minor plot hole. Specifically, it seemed an obvious thing that the police overlooked that would have had huge ramifications. Not as glaring as it was in “Weapons” mind, you could see this gaff actually happening (If unlikely). The story didn’t need the swerve and may have worked better from a character perspective without it. There are also questions relating to how this actually works. Ellison was a true crime righter, so his obsession made sense as well as not reporting the box of snuff movies to the police. What about the other victims?
Conclusion
Ultimately, this is a movie that succeeds on it’s ability to create a tense atmosphere. But it also requires that atmosphere to cover up for flaws. It has a vaguely derivative concept, a plot with a lot of holes and characters that are hard to care much about. The good news is that it does really succeed in this endeavor. If you aren’t watching it as a critic, I think most people would find the atmosphere alone enough of a winner. So this is still a good horror. It’s just not the best horror and in my opinion it is a long way from the scariest. This is a solid 6.5/10 and a recommendation. Just don’t believe all the hype.