In honor of Halloween and Halloweekend, a couple of my friends and I decided to Binge watch a lot of horror movies this weekend. I am a big horror movie person so this is and will be a very fun weekend for me. So far We have watched Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out, James Wan’s 2013 film The Conjuring, and Scott Derickson’s 2012 film Sinister as well as the 2015 film Sinister 2. There are still a lot more films we have pkanned to watch but have not yet got to. In convenience of last weeks topic of Genre I thought I would write a blog post about the horror movies I have been watching, more specifically 2012 Sinister.
Horror is a genre of storytelling designed to evoke fear, suspense, and unease in its audience. Horror explores themes like death, the unknown, and often aiming to reveal humanity’s deepest fears and vulnerabilities. The genre uses various subgenres, such as psychological horror, supernatural horror, and slasher horror, each with distinctive methods for scaring the audience. Techniques like eerie soundscapes, dark lighting, unsettling visuals, and intense character conflicts all work together to create an atmosphere of dread. A hallmark of horror is its ability to confront societal taboos and push boundaries, drawing viewers into worlds that feel both alien and familiar, forcing them to confront their darkest imaginations.
The 2012 film Sinister, directed by Scott Derrickson, is a prime example of effective supernatural horror. Sinister tells the story of true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt, played by Ethan Hawke, who moves his family into a home where a brutal murder once took place. In the attic, he finds a box of Super 8 home movies that reveal a series of gruesome family murders connected by a demonic presence known as Bughuul. As Ellison delves deeper into the mystery, he becomes haunted by disturbing visions and supernatural occurrences that begin to tear at his sanity. This setup employs key horror tropes—an isolated setting, disturbing found footage, and an ominous supernatural force—to amplify fear and dread.
Sinister aligns with the horror genre in several impactful ways. Its use of found footage, where Ellison uncovers videos of past murders, taps into a classic horror device: presenting terrifying images with an eerie authenticity that makes the horror feel real and unavoidable. The character of Bughuul represents a supernatural evil that transcends human understanding, a common theme in horror that adds to the unsettling nature of the film. Furthermore, Sinister incorporates slow-building suspense, where the horror is not in jump scares but in the suffocating dread that permeates each scene, making audiences feel like something horrifying is always lurking just out of sight.
In the end, this film is a prime example of what would fit into the genre of Horror. It has all of the key elements that we discussed in class that would put someone on edge and classify this movie as a Horror movie. This was my first time viewing this film and I really enjoyed watching it (the second one was even better).