Sinister (2012)

 

Once you see him, nothing can save you.

In what has to be one of the creepiest openers I have ever seen, we see 4 people, 2 kids and what I can only assume is there parents, with a burlap sack on there head and nooses around they're neck.  They are also outside, and all the ropes seem to connect on the other side of a tree limb, we see the tree limb start to move, and then fall, the people are lifted up and hung to death.  No clue as to what caused this, so I am assuming this is going to be about a paranormal entity.  Also the opener was shot in a Super 8 style.

We see a family, Dad, Ellison, Mom, Tracy, Daughter, Ashley, and Son, Trevor, moving into a house.  The sheriff of the town comes to talk to Ellison, and we find out Ellison is a writer, and he is writing a story about a missing/presumed dead girl in town.  Sheriff is less than thrilled to have him in town, and leaves, but before he leaves he points to the house and says that he finds this to be in extremely bad taste.  Tracy asks if they moved into a house a couple streets away from a crime scene, again, and Ellison says no, which doesn't seem convincing.  I'm gonna go with this actually being the crime scene house.  Ellison heads to the kitchen to put stuff away, and looks out the back window, and there's the tree from the opener.  Am I good, or am I good?

Ellison head up to the attic and finds a box full of old Super 8 tapes, which is what the opener was shot on, he takes them downstairs.  Later that night, as he's setting up his office, which includes setting up a investigation board, and we see that there is a 3rd child, Stephanie, in the family, The Stevenson's from the opener.  I'm going to assume Stephanie is the missing/presumed dead girl him and Sheriff were talking about.  Ellison decides to watch the tapes and sets up the 8mm player. 

The first tape, Family Hanging out '11, shows exactly that, the Stevenson's hanging out on a summer day having a good time, until about 2 minutes in and it cuts to what we saw in the opening segment, them being hung.  Ellison heads outside to stare at the tree, it gets to cold and he head back inside, but starts hearing noises, it turns out to be Ashley trying to find the bathroom, he puts her to bed and heads back to his office.


The second tape, BBQ '79, focuses on another family, who is having a BBQ by a lake, and same as the first one, a few minutes in we see the family being killed, but this time the family is tied up in a car, which has a strange symbol on the hood, and is set on fire. 

Ellison starts to hear noises and sees one of the moving boxes start to move, Trevor slowly pops out and starts screaming.  We find out that Trevor has night terrors, and does this quite often.  The next morning, the kids start school, Tracy takes them and plans to run some errands, which leaves Ellison to watch the next video.


The third tape, Pool Party '66, shows a family playing in a pool together, then same as the first two shows there death, this time each member of the family is duct taped to a beach chair, with a rope attached, each roped is pulled until each member is drowning in the pool.  However this time, we see a person in black, with black eyes walking in the pool, the player then catches on fire.  Ellison then goes online to google how to edit a Super 8 film, then rigs up a system to tape the footage on a camera. 

Tracy and the kids arrive back home, and Tracy and Trevor are fighting, Ellison comes to break it up.  We find out that Trevor got in trouble at school for drawing on a white board with a permanent marker, and guess what he drew?  He drew a tree with 4 people hanging from it, Tracy is less than pleased to discover that, that is what his new book is on and they fight.  Later that night Tracy puts the kids to sleep and Ellison starts the next tape.

Tape four, Sleepy Time '98, we are shown around a house, through the kitchen, up stairs, where we see the same symbol from tape 2, we then see 2 adults and a child get they're throats sliced.  This is actually a pretty cool scene, as it would show us everything, but turn to Ellison, who is wearing glasses, when the throats would get sliced, and we could see in Ellison's glasses a reflection of what was happening.

Ellison records the tape and spots the symbol and prints it out.  While looking through the recording he finds a hint of where the murder was located in, St. Louis, and finds a family that fits the description.  In a video, online we find out the family, The Millers, had another son, Christopher, who was taken the same night, just like Stephanie.  Ellison hears a noise upstairs, but pays no attention to it, minute later the lights go out.  Ellison goes to investigate upstairs, and he finds nothing, but it goes silent and then a big BOOM is heard.  I swear to you I jumped out of my skin, and my heart is still beating out of my chest.  Alright, now that I can breathe properly again, back to the story!

Ellison heads to the kitchen to grab a knife before heading up to the attic.  He sees a box lid move, and there's a snake underneath of it.  There are drawings on the inside of the box lid, they depict each of the tapes killings, with names listed of each family member, and someone named Mr. Boogie.  There is an extra drawing, but something makes a noise and freaks Ellison out, and he goes to leave and falls through the floor out of the attic. 

He calls for a medic who suggests he go to the hospital and he refuses.  The Deputy who arrived with the medic asks for an autograph, and asks if he can be of any help, so he can get an acknowledgement in the next book.  Ellison asks if he can get some information about the murders from the tapes, and the Deputy agrees.

Ellison goes back to work, looking through the pictures of the box lid he took, and checking them with the tape footage.  In every tape we start to see Mr. Boogie, like in the pool one, not as direct, but subtly placed in the background.  Deputy calls about the information and we find out who is on the tapes.  BBQ is The Martinez family, who had another son who was taken, Sleepy Time is The Millers, plus what we already know is Family Hanging Out is The Stevenson's, now the only one we need is Pool Party.

While Ellison is talking on the phone, he is in front of his computer that has a picture of Mr. Boogie up.  Ellison isn't looking at the computer, and Mr. Boogie moves, the fucking picture on the computer moves!  Lets just say I am thoroughly freaked right now.  Anyways Deputy gives him the addresses for where the Millers and the Martinez's lived, and we find out that before the Stevenson's moved here they lived where the Miller family was murdered.  After he gets off the phone he looks at the video he filmed up in the attic of the box lid, and notices that three sets of hands grab him in one of the frames. 

Later that night, Ellison is in bed, and he hears the projection player playing, and goes to investigate.  The player and his laptop have started playing on they're own.  Ellison grabs the picture of Mr. Boogie from they're backyard (from Family Hanging Out) and puts it on the window where the picture was taken, he pulls the picture away and Mr. Boogie is there.  Ellison goes to grab a bat and heads outside, the bushes move and it's Trevor, whose had another night terror.  He takes Trevor back in, and Tracy's awake, Ellison head back outside to get his flashlight and bat, and there's a growling dog.  Ellison goes to pick up the bat, and behind him we see 5 little children, the dog stops growling and the children disappear.

Back in the house him and Tracy argue about leaving here, but the quickly make up.  The next day Deputy comes over with some files, and we find out that he's not as stupid as he looks, and that he knows that these murders could be connected.  Ellison starts to fill him in on what he knows, which is that the whole family was murdered, except for the one child, he now tells him about the drowning and the symbol.  Ellison sees that in the toxicology report every person has some type of relaxing substance in it. Deputy says the symbol looks like something from the occult, and that there's a professor, Jonas, who specializes in that at the college.

Later that night, Ellison watches another tape, Lawn Work '86,  which shows, in a voyeur-esque way, another family sitting in a living room at night, we then see the cameraman start a lawn mower and start moving around, then he mows over a little girls face.  Ellison then gets a Skype call from Jonas, who tells him he knows about the symbol, and the murders.  The symbol is of worship of a pagan deity, Bughuul aka Mr. Boogie, who eats children, he needs there soul to survive.  Jonas plays it off as a cult initiation, but sees Ellison's worry and asks if there's been another one.

In bed that night, the player starts playing again, and Ellison goes to investigates.  Stops the projector and grabs the bat, and goes into the kitchen, and Stephanie appears, in the living room Pool boy appear.  Going into the hallway Lawn girl appears, then Christopher, then he goes to check on Ashley and she's sleeping, or so he thinks.  We zoom into Ashley and she is fully awake, staring straight ahead, where Stephanie is sitting, and signals her to 'shh', in the background we see that Ashley drew the tree and the 4 people being hung on her walls.

The next day Ashley draws Stephanie on the wall, and says she's been talking to her.  Tracy finally finds out they are in the death house, and they argue, they make up later that night.  In bed the player starts up again and this time its not in his office, it's in the attic and so are the 5 dead kids, they tell him to 'shh' and Mr. Boogie appears in front of him and he falls down the stairs.  The tapes fall through too and he collects them are burns them in the back yard, Tracy comes out and he tells her to get the kids and that they are leaving.  They get pulled over by Sheriff, but he lets them go to get rid of them.

Back at there old house everyone is happy and bringing all the stuff in.  That night Jonas emails him 3 pictures of signs of Bughuul, which are a Scorpion, a Snake, and a Dog, sound familiar?  He calls Jonas and they Skype, Jonas tells him that all other pictures of Bughuul don't exist, because pictures of him were used as Gateways for him to bring people to him.  Ellison asks what would happen if the images were burned, Jonas doesn't reply, and they hang up.  Ellison brings stuff up to the attic, and there's the box filled with all the tapes and player.  However this time there's an extra that says 'Extended Cut Ending', and he goes to work on setting the player up.

During all of this Deputy has been calling, and Ellison had been declining, but this time he accepts.  Deputy tells him that each family lived in the house the previous murdered family lived in.  He watches the tapes and makes a huge discovery, the kids are the ones that killed there family.  Yes the extended tapes show the kids coming out from behind the camera and doing the 'shh' to the camera.  Ellison starts to feel light headed and grabs his coffee, and sees some green substance in it, and sees a note under his cup that says 'Good Night Daddy.'  Ellison then falls and starts to foam at the mouth, in the background we see Ashley, Ellison then passes out.

Ellison awakes to see his wife and son bound and gagged, same as he is, Ashley approaches with a axe and the 8mm camera.  Ashley tells him that she will make him famous again, and proceeds to murder her family.  In Super 8 vision, we see Ashley leave the room with the axe, and the hallway is covered in pictures she drew in the blood of her family, she also does the 'shh' to the camera. 

At the end of the hall we see the 5 dead children, we pan out and see Ashley watching her movie in the office, and drawing her killing spree on the box lid with the others.  She then walks behind the camera, and we see Mr. Boogie behind her, he picks her up and takes her into the movie.

In the attic we see the box, with an added tape, House Painting '12, we pan out away from the box and Bughuul appears, we fade to black.

The End.

Can I get a slow clap for this movie?  This movie was amazing, definitely the best horror movie I have seen in a long time.  There were so many shock gag's, and I fell for every one of them, I can't tell you how many times I jumped during this movie.  I loved the twist at the end that the kids were the one doing the killings, and that they were then transported into the videos.  Did anyone else get a Slender Man vibe from Mr. Boogie?  Tell me what you thought of the movie down below in the comments or hit me up on Twitter (@ohmyskittles13) and send me suggestions on what I should watch next!

Hope you all have a great night!