Sinister (2012) on Netflix
True-crime writer Ellison Oswalt moves his family into a Chatsford, Pennsylvania house where a family was killed, without telling his wife Tracy. In the attic he finds home movies of murders.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.8/10322,750 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes63%
Trailer
Plot summary
Ellison Oswalt wrote a debut book that helped solve a crime. Nothing he has written since has matched its success. He moves his wife Tracy and their children Trevor and Ashley to Chatsford, Pennsylvania. The house is the site of the Stevenson family's hanging, and the youngest child, Stephanie, disappeared. Tracy does not know this. In the attic, Ellison discovers a box holding a scorpion, a projector, and reels of home movies. The films show families being murdered, seemingly by the person holding the camera. He considers handing them to the police but keeps them. One reel corresponds to the 1998 murder of the Miller family and the disappearance of their thirteen-year-old son, Christopher. A cultic symbol appears in the footage, along with a strange figure. Childlike drawings name that figure Mr. Boogie.
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Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sinister (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Writer C. Robert Cargill based Sinister's setup on a real nightmare he had after watching The Ring, in which he found a film in his own attic showing an entire family being hanged.
- To make the found-footage snuff films look authentic, the filmmakers shot the Super 8 segments first, using real vintage Super 8 cameras and film stock rather than a digital imitation.
- Director Scott Derrickson designed the villain Bughuul by searching 500,000 Flickr photos tagged "horror," narrowing them to 15, and buying the rights to a ghoul photo tagged "Natalie" for $500 after writer C. Robert Cargill was struck by it.
- A 2020 study by Broadband Choices that tracked viewers' heart rates while they watched 50 top-rated horror films named Sinister the scariest movie ever made, with heart rates jumping from a resting 65 BPM to 86 BPM, a 32% spike higher than any other film tested.
