Film

Sinister

Name: Sinister
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Mystery
Released: 2012
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Vincent D'Onofrio, James Ransone, Fred Thompson

Sinister is a slow-building, genuinely upsetting horror about a true-crime writer who moves his family into a murder house and finds a box of Super 8 films documenting that killing, and others like it, in grainy home-movie detail. Scott Derrickson builds dread out of static and ambition rather than jump scares. It's for people who like their horror patient, grim, and a little dirty.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy slow-building dread where the scares come from grainy old home-movie footage and a creeping sense that digging into the past is the real danger.

Skip it if you want brisk scares or a clean genre thrill, since it lingers over long stretches of tapes and paperwork and its unease builds slowly, with a grubby, bleak tone.

What it asks of you: Patience through a slow first hour in a cramped house, with close attention to grainy frames paying off more than any rush.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Insidious2011

A family moves house and the haunting follows anyway — same dread of a home turning hostile, but James Wan turns the scares up loud and theatrical rather than slow-burn creeping, with a genuinely inventive mythology behind the demon.

But It leans hard into jump scares and a busier, more maximalist third act than Sinister's patient dread — less unsettling, more of a rollercoaster.

The Conjuring2013

Another writer-adjacent family-in-danger true-crime hook — this time real-life paranormal investigators drawn into a haunted farmhouse. James Wan again, but tighter, colder, and more classically built, with dread that escalates instead of exploding.

But It's more of a haunted-house ensemble piece than a character study — less interested in one man's unraveling mind than in scaring you efficiently.

Hereditary2018

For the same slow, dread-soaked descent into a family destroyed by something ancient and cruel — Toni Collette gives one of horror's great performances, and the film commits fully to bleakness without cheap comfort.

But It's genuinely traumatic rather than fun-scary, with a final act so strange it splits audiences right down the middle.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Sinister

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Peeping Tom1960

Both are built around the idea that filming death is itself a kind of violence — a camera that watches and kills instead of just recording.

A young cameraman films his own murders and can't stop watching the footage back — the great granddaddy of 'camera as weapon' horror, decades before found footage made it a genre, and just as clinical and cruel.

But It's a 1960 British thriller, not a horror movie in the modern sense — restrained, talky, and slow by contemporary standards, with none of the visual shocks you'd expect.

The Babadook2014

A grieving single mother is stalked by a storybook monster that may just be her own unraveling mind — the scariest thing here is guilt, not jump scares, and it lingers long after.

But Slower and more domestic than a haunted-house shocker — patient viewers will love it, but there's little in the way of set-piece scares.

The Black Phone2022

Derrickson and Hawke reunite, this time with Hawke playing the monster — a masked child abductor haunting a suburb of missing kids, told with the same grimy '70s dread and eye for domestic menace.

But More supernatural rescue thriller than slow existential dread — it's scarier in bursts, less unsettling as a sustained mood piece.

Oculus2014

A cursed object instead of cursed footage, but the same idea that recorded images can lie and kill — siblings investigate a haunted mirror linked to their parents' deaths, with a clever fractured timeline.

But The time-jumping structure gets a little tangled by the end, and it trades atmosphere for plot mechanics more than some horror fans prefer.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring2001

A journalist investigates a cursed videotape that kills whoever watches it — the same idea of media as a vector for death, and one of the defining images of 2000s horror: that girl, that well, that static.

But It's more polished mainstream spookiness than grubby dread, and its central mystery-solving plot moves at an investigative-thriller pace rather than horror's.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring poster

Smile2022

An entity spreads by making its victims smile before they die, passed on like a curse or a virus — visually inventive dread with the same sense of an ancient evil feeding on suffering.

But It's flashier and more jump-scare reliant than genuinely dreadful, and the ending goes bigger and more literal than some will want.

Talk to Me2023

Teenagers use a cursed object to summon spirits for fun, and the fun curdles fast — same escalating dread of dabbling with something you don't understand, with a raw, low-budget nastiness.

But It's youth-culture horror with a party-movie energy early on — a very different social world than Sinister's isolated, middle-aged domestic dread.

Zodiac2007

Both are about a man's obsessive pursuit of a case eating his sanity and his family — Sinister just adds a demon to the same true-crime rabbit hole.

Swap the supernatural for the real thing: a writer/cartoonist becomes obsessed with an unsolved case, his career and family fraying as the investigation consumes him — same descent into obsession, minus the ghost.

But It's a two-and-a-half-hour procedural with almost no scares, more interested in paperwork and dead ends than dread — a very different kind of patience is required.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes2007

Sinister's plot literally is footage of murders someone kept — this is that idea taken to its rawest, most unfiltered extreme, as a fake documentary rather than a polished thriller.

A mockumentary built entirely from a serial killer's home-movie footage of his victims — the found-footage snuff-tape premise Sinister only hints at, played completely straight and far, far nastier.

But It's grim, cheap-looking, and genuinely upsetting with none of Sinister's polish or restraint — this is horror that wants to make you feel sick, not just scared.