Sinister is a 2012 supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson about a true crime writer named Ellison Oswald who moves his family into a home where a family was murdered in hopes of finding inspiration. Instead, he discovers mysterious Super 8 home videos of the murders and realizes they depict decades of killings. As more disturbing events occur in the home, Ellison pieces together that an ancient evil entity known as Bughuul is responsible for the murders and has now targeted his own family.

1. SINISTER
Sinister is a 2012 supernatural
horror film directed by Scott
Derrickson and written by
Derrickson and C. Robert
Cargill. "Sinister" is a story
made of darkness: mysterious
loud bangs in the attic, distant
moans from the dead,
vulnerable children, an
egomaniac crime writer and his
long-suffering wife, who is
plenty fed up even before she
discovers he has moved his family into the same house where
horrifying murders took place.
Summary:

2. Ten years ago, true crime writer Ellison Oswald made his
reputation with a best-selling account of a notorious murder.
Now, desperate to replicate the critical and financial success of
his first book, he moves his loyal wife, over-anxious son and
artistic daughter into a home where a suburban family was
brutally executed and a child disappeared, hoping to find
inspiration in the crime scene. Instead he discovers a
mysterious box containing Super 8 footage of the murders-plus
several more equally gruesome homicides. As he watches the
carnage unfold on film, Ellison realizes he has stumbled onto
evidence of a decades-long killing spree. But rather than going
to the local authorities, he keeps the movies to himself, hoping
to publish another acclaimed book based on the crimes. As
Ellison starts to piece together the mind-bending truth about
the crimes and the murderer, unseen intruders and inexplicable
goings-on disrupt his once peaceful household. Slowly, he
begins to realize that his ambition has placed him and his
family in the path of an ancient and bloodthirsty adversary who
has marked them as his next victims.
Codes and Conventions:

3. While certain elements of the Sinister plot are
predictable, Derrickson has once again delivered a horror film
that is not only creepier than most of its contemporaries, it
excels with relatable characters, and a smart premise – a
premise that pays off in both the larger story mythology as
well as moment to moment scares. Sinister does rely on a
number of familiar horror beats and definitely takes advantage
of the overused, albeit effective, “creepy children” trend in
Hollywood.
 Sinister used different music to create different
atmospheres within the film. The non- diegetic music in
the film was used to create tension and generally
accompany the film. Music in a film can tell the
audience more that is on the screen. It can be used to
install an idea within the audience. For example, in
Sinster, Ellison was ascending to the attic, investigating
the sounds he heard coming from up there. As he does
this the music becomes very tense. The tempo begins
to slow down, this tells the audience that they can now
relax as nothing important will happen. A major event

4. in the film then takes place. The music as inputted
tallow for genuine surprise from the audience.
 To increase the scare factor of the horror film, a
supernatural entity is used. This sets the protagonist
apart from the antagonist very early and quickly. This
supernatural entity is “Bughuul” or “Mr Boogie” He
steals children and takes them to the netherworld.
There is hardly any ambiguity due to the fact that in
most horror films the supernatural are presumed to be
evil. This film conforms to this template, which makes it
film a good physiological horror film as it plays with the

5. audience’s pre-existing natural fear of the supernatural -
a very common phobia.
 In horror films, children are often portrayed as the
antagonists because we do not expect it because we
attribute features such as, weak, vulnerable, and
innocent to children. They are still objectified as weak
as they have to tie up their victims before they can
begin to kill them. This is consistent throughout all the
murders, for example when the child slit the throat of
their victims, the victims were all tied up. This is to
eliminate the possibility of a struggle as the child will
most likely lose in that event. Children are not thought
of as powerful antagonists but in horror films, they are.
This unexpected turn of events end up being
physiologically terrifying. This causes the audience to

6. also label children as dangerous and threatening in
their minds.
 Another very common feature in horror films is low key
lighting. This is consistent with ‘Sinister’. Low key
lighting is very effective, if a room is poorly lit, it would
be very hard to identify objects/people within that
room. This is exactly the case when Ellison enters the
attic and discovers the box filled with films. At first we
and him do not know what this object is, we don’t
know the significance of this object due to the low
lighting. He isn’t sure what this object is until he is
closer to the box. This adds tension to the film as we
are now expecting a moment of discovery.

7.  One of the very first scenes of the Establishing shots are
very important to a film, the house is shown through a
film as they are used to show where the film long shot.
The entire front yard is geographically set. This is
important as the visible, this tells the viewer that the
viewer can then relate to the location in film is more
than likely to be set which the film is set. This make the
viewer within or around that house and feel like they
can relate with the film through the long shot of the
house we can tell that the house is situated in a
suburban area.

8. References:
http://www.slideshare.net/manilike/reasons-
sinister-is-a-good-horror-thriller-film
http://www.eonline.com/news/353496/eight-
reasons-sinister-is-the-best-scary-movie-of-the-
year
http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Sinister/Summar
y/
http://screenrant.com/sinister-movie-reviews/
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sinister-2012