Review – Sinister

I ran hot and cold on this production. I’ve come to appreciate producers’ decisions to actually spend money on horror movies. Not that Ethan Hawke necessarily does a better acting job than a low-budget unknown could have done. But at least the creative calls – good and bad – were deliberate decisions rather than the helpless flailing of a pack of amateurs with neither the wits nor the resources to make anything entertaining. A true crime writer desperately trying to finish a book runs up against a demon named Bagul – or Mr. Boogie in kid-speak – that specializes in persuading children to kill their whole families. I confess that I got distracted by a plot hole: this extremely methodical demon sticks to its plan except that it always targets families with three children and our hero only has two. Still, overall the production was a cut above most of the rest of the genre’s recent entries. mildly amusing