As I've alluded to on this blog, I am not among the mathematically gifted. I have been putting off taking my math requirements in school. I've looked at them, but it seemed tactically sounder to get through other things before taking them on. Now I'm being punished by having a "developmental" hold placed on my registration.
I plan to take my "developmental" math (I place in quotes because I have a real problem saying college level math is any way, shape or form developmental; sounds like I need help learning how to tie my shoes or button my shirt, that word) Spring semester 2013. I intend to put my best toward it, in an effort to grade well, and to hopefully place ahead and get out of the rest of my math requirements. That's part of why I want to go to part time attendance Spring semester. That and I need another source of income. As I've also mentioned repeatedly on this forum, money is a big issue right now. Not enough of it, that is.
Anyway, the short version is, I have this hold on my registration, and I've been doing what it takes to get it taken off. I planned today to register for an evening class with a good teacher. I studied, then took the placement test yesterday and then waited to register till this morning when my hold would supposedly lift. But when I got on to do it, the hold hadn't gone yet.
I went to the "Student Success Center" (an ironic title to my eyes, just now) and asked about it, and they said I had to take an online counseling session (I learned next to nothing that I didn't already know, by the way), and that my registration hold would be lifted the next business day.
But that is Monday. Meanwhile, all the children who have decided to go to college this spring are online and taking up spots. Will I get a good class time? Maybe. Maybe not. Am I happy about it? You figure that one out.
There is still hope that I might be able to register this afternoon. She said it "might" happen, if somebody gets to them (the holds, I assume). Thus the bureaucratic tail pipe. I'm back at the end of the bus, pushing and praying that it will go faster so I can get where I need to be. It isn't an illustrious destination, but it'll suit me just fine. Here's hoping. And in the meantime, I feel like I'm a frickin mental quadriplegic. I can't seem to get my brain in gear while my gut worries (and that is a lot lately), and it's making me crazy!
Ok, the name of this post is 'Movie Review: Sinister,' so I ought to stop kibitzing and belly-aching and get to it. Sorry, but thanks just the same for your indulgence.
Sinister (2012)
A true-crime writer finds a cache of 8mm "snuff" films that suggest the murder he is currently researching is the work of a serial killer whose career dates back to the 1960s. Short synopsis of Sinister taken from IMDb.com
Upfront, let me say that this is not a movie appropriate for young children/teens or the easily impressionable. The snuff film content is graphic and disturbing, and though the film is mostly creepy and avoids going the splatter junky approach (though there is gore enough to go around, just mostly seen in effect than in action), it is definitely deserving of its "R" rating.
That said, I begin the meat of the review. I watched this one in the big theater a week or two ago. To be honest, I can't really recall the details. It was a matinee, so it wasn't "full" price, per-se. But that does go into my final recommendation factoring, so I thought I'd make mention of it, just the same.
Sinister was satisfyingly sinister for me. There, I've robbed the surprise ending for you. I'll do more than that before this review is done, so if you plan to see this film and don't want the plot spoiled for you, skip down to the very bottom of my comments (just above the parting comment), and then call it a day on this entry. Cause from here on out, I'm calling "Spoiler Alert."
Hmmm... where to begin? How about Ethan Hawke in his Gordon Freeman look, huh? Those not familiar with the video/computer game phenomenon from the turn of the millennium known as Half-Life will miss this comment's significance, but for the rest of us, he's really got that Freeman glasses and goatee going on in this film. But the "Mr. Rogers" sweater he wears for most of the film makes a funny counterpoint to the Freeman look. Maybe Freeman would wear that kind of gray "bally" sweater when not at work in the Black Mesa facility. I never played more than five minutes of the exceptional Half-Life 2, so I couldn't say about that (and why I didn't is another story not cogent to this review, so I'll leave it for another day). But I always see Freeman as being in his environmental suit, when I picture him. Not a gray sweater shirt.
 |
| I knew I wouldn't be the only one to make this connection, and thankfully somebody else made the comparison. Think the filmmakers have a thing for Half-Life? Can't be a coincidence, can it? Oh, and is that sweater type called a a"cardigan?" I don't know enough about sweaters to say. / Source: CheezBurger.com |
As for the character that Ethan Hawke plays (forgive me, but I've mis-placed the character's name for the moment), I could relate to him. Here we have a writer who is chasing a dream. The guy is a true-crime writer who had a great success in his past, but is still trying to regain his glory days after a number of less successful efforts and a growing reputation as a finger-pointer and malcontent with police detectives and sheriff's offices. His books tend to imply that the cops didn't do enough to solve problematic cases, and this makes his presence unwelcome in areas where such a problematic case has occurred. Such as the town in which the majority of Sinister takes place.
See, there was this gruesome murder at this house, and Hawke's character has the chutzpah to actually move into the place and then start investigating the homicides on his own. And he brings his family with him, but doesn't tell his wife that they are living in the place where a family of four were hung to death from the tree in the backyard. The limb that was used as a counterbalance to lift them off the ground and to their gruesome deaths is still as it was after the crime was committed, implying the killings hadn't happened too long prior to our intrepid busy-body's move-in (this seemed kinda dumb to me, wouldn't somebody cut it off and throw it away? - but it saved more exposition, I guess).
As I said earlier, I could relate to Hawke's character. He is chasing his dream, and truthfully it is to the exclusion of his family's best interests. He is driven to achieve greatness, instead of doing something good.
 |
| "I got a bat. If you're a human bad-guy, I'm gonna get you!" "We're undead children's souls, you got anything better than a bat?" "Umm... Maybe." "Look, we're going to kill you and your whole family, so give up now and we'll do it quietly in your sleep, instead of horrifically using maniac pigmy goats who wield chainsaws, ok?" / Source: FilmsNMovies.com |
I also thought the idea of moving into the house where the murders took place was a nice twist on the traditional "haunted house" approach. So often we feel sorry for people who, in stories, accidentally move into a place where bad things happen/ed. But this guy goes looking for it. So while you feel sorry for his family - who are unwitting victims - there is something to be said for arguing that the guy himself got what was coming to him. But then again, when the movie plays out, I would say nobody deserves such a bad end. Read on and I'll tell more.
The film had some welcome moments of humor. The conversations between Oswald (oh yes, that was his name - Hawke's character, that is) and Officer "So-and-So," after Oswald fell through the ceiling of the house while investigating strange noises in the attic was such a moment. The cop, called Officer So-and-So in the film, says it was probably squirrels in the eaves, and Oswald mentions killing a scorpion up there shortly after moving in, to which the officer responds "Squirrels make noise. Scorpions don't." This is said in such an obvious way as to seem almost like a non sequitur. The conversation goes on to include snakes and their lack of feet. The scene translates to the audience (at least to me) as having some genuine feeling of good humor and reason to smile in the dialogue. The cop is doing his best to help out, and the results are darkly humorous in a film which has many more moments of gravity then levity.
Oh, and speaking of the fall through the ceiling scene, there is a nice touch here when a cell phone being used as a flashlight comes into play. I had only recently been exposed to such technology, and so when I saw it being used in the film, I thought "oh, a modern gimmick at work." But the filmmakers did a nice twist here. The cell phone is also used to shoot some video while Oswald is in the attic, and when he falls through the ceiling, the camera is still rolling. When Oswald reviews the footage later, he sees a few frames where his fall is speeded along by some ghostly hands. It is a disturbing moment, as the missing children have not yet become a pivotal part of the plot, and so it makes for a nice scare/fore-shadowing.
That scene makes a good segue to explain those missing children. To ruin the plot for you, there is this Babylonian/Sumarian/somebody-or-other evil deity who, when invoked, comes and claims the children for his own "familiars". He is known as Baghuul, the eater of children, and he comes and takes the kid's souls away. In the movie, there are a number of cases where families have been filmed on old 8mm film, going back to the 1960s, and Oswald discovers this bunch of "home movies" in the attic upon arrival at the house. The films show the families in somewhat familiar and peaceful surroundings at first, and then end in horrific scenes of death and carnage. There are several, all innocuously named on their canisters, and each depicts a sedated family being murdered. Heart-warming stuff, it's not.
 |
| Hawke, as Oswald, reacts to the horrific images he sees on the screen as the snuff film plays out. / Source: RopesOfSilicon.com |
But each family, after being murdered, is missing one kid. The kids have been spirited away by Baghuul, who is seen in glimpses throughout the film. Here are two details of the movie I didn't like: 1) the kids, and 2) Baghuul's "jump scare" nature.
First, the kids. There is a scene midway though the movie where Oswald, having already experienced numerous scary happenings in the house, goes around the place, seeking the source of some new odd noise. The audience watches as Oswald looks around, and as he does, the deathly forms of the children who were missing from the "snuff films" jump and prance around him, just out of his sight. When the first of these appeared near the beginning of this scene, the girls in the row behind me shrieked. I yawned. The effect was not nearly as frightening to me as some others things in the film.
For one, it was somewhat predictable. For another, the kids are not great actors. They do their best, I'm sure, but they didn't give me near the feeling of apprehension that the little boy in the film The Grudge did, or even Samara from The Ring. Worse still, I think kids are over-used these days as horror movie plot points/spooks anyway, so the appearance of them (especially in this scene) failed to elicit the needed dread for me.
Then again, the kids weren't always a dud. For instance, at one point, Oswald hears the 8mm film projector that was part of the "Home Movies" collection running again in the attic. This is concerning, because he had just tossed the whole box and its contents on the backyard barbecue grill and set it ablaze in the preceding scene. When Hawke puts his head up into the attic to look, the kids sit side by side along the walls, facing the screen, as one of the movies plays. It's quite creepy. Then they turn to look at him, and each places a finger over their lips as if to say "be quiet or he'll hear you."
Here enters Baghuul in the flesh. It's a cheap "jump shock" moment, but the bad-guy pokes his head around in front of Oswald's face from the side, and our hapless hero falls down the stairs in fright. The trouble is, this is one of the better scenes where Baghuul shows his face. There is another where Oswald is looking out into the backyard and comparing a still frame from the movie that was shot of the family who lived in the house (the ones who were hung) to what he sees there. A ghostly face shows in the picture. When Oswald moves the photo, the face still remains, looking at him from the foliage across the yard. Another competent jump scare.
 |
| The instance I spoke of above, when the girls in the row behind me shrieked and I yawned. And not the uncomfortable sort of yawn you do when you're trying to control your emotions, but the sort where you weren't impressed. The scene is really trying to scare you, but for me, it just didn't. I like the idea that seeing less means more to fear. This specific image, as shown above, really failed that for me. Plus, she looks made up to appear like a ghoul. Sorry. No sale. / Source: MechoDownload.com |
But the trouble I spoke of comes because Baghuul is, for the most part, a "jump scare" sort of fright. There is little of the menace and dread you get from him that you might get from, say, a Freddie Kruger or a Hannibal Lecter. What this tells me is that this guy, as a horror movie villain, can't stand up to repeated exposure to the audience, as one of those other mentioned baddies could. Sure, Baghuul is scary, but the filmmakers seem to have given him more of the "momentary" sort of terror than real staying power, based on how they play him in the film.
In this vein, there is a scene - which you can see in the trailer above - where Baghuul has been captured on film by Oswald in a moment where he walks past a mirror surface (from one of the snuff films). Oswald is investigating who this apparition is, and as he speaks on the phone, the stilled image on the computer screen turns to look at our unsuspecting protagonist. He doesn't see it, we do, and the effect falls flat. It's been done too much, in my opinion. You know it is coming, simply because it is so obvious. They could have tried something new here, but the filmmakers didn't, and the audience gets stuck with the results of a moment of "thrust upon" tension that fails to promote any real scare.
Overall, when the movie worked, it really worked. The scene (also in the trailer) where the boy lays backward out of the moving box and starts shrieking is an example. On the other hand, the snuff footage of the family hanging was over-used, in my opinion. Yes, its shocking and nasty, but you lose some impact in the repeated showing. And it gets shown a lot.
 |
| Another part of the film where it broke down for me. The ghost on the paused screen turning to look at the unsuspecting viewer has been overdone. On the bright side, the makeup effects on Baghuul were suitably dreadful, to my way of thinking. / Source: TheRottingZombie.blogspot.com |
Another thing. The scream cue during the lawnmower scene was cheap. The dread of the single flashlight leading toward what we know will be a person is horrible enough, but the scream part added in was kind of cheating. The rumble of the mower is subdued on the soundtrack, but the scream that follows when the flashlight reveals a person's face, caught in a moment of impending death, is way too loud and jarring. We've already emphasized that the victims are drugged up, so the scream seems both out of place, and far too loud, so as to make the audience cringe. I already was; you didn't need to hurt my ears to get me to cringe more.
Other thoughts... I liked how the curse follows people after they move from the place where the bad thing happened. Nice touch. I liked the attic projector running scene I mentioned above, after Oswald burned the stuff, especially when the box of "Home Movies" comes flying from above and lands on the hallway floor after Oswald has crashed down on his butt in a a heap. Obvious as it may be, it's as though the entity haunting the house is saying "you wanted this stuff and now you're stuck with it, buddy. Watch our movies."
I even liked the daughter's painting, and how it became the gruesome results when she (yes, big spoiler moment) chops up her family with an axe and paints demonic things on the walls with their blood. The film had some real spooky, slasher and supernatural grooves that it melded well together from time to time.
On the other hand, as I have said, I thought some of the "jump scares" were too cliche. The movie had some good things going for it, but horror movie watchers have been so inundated with material, it is hard not to become a critic and a connoisseur. If you are going to do something that really works, you gotta know that jump scares can't carry a film. Not a good one, anyway. Not anymore. Maybe in the 1960s, but the day is far past. Sinister manages not to fall victim to this problem in whole, but it does let jump scares carry a main villain character - Baghuul - and overall it uses the technique too often, in my opinion.
 |
| A combination of good moment and poor makeup. This scene gave me the shivers, but as a still image, this photo brings me back to my argument that Sinister's kids don't pull it off. / Source: EverythingWeGot.com |
So I'd say that Sinister is a good one-time freak out movie. It does much better than the lame and predictable Paranormal Activity series (one of the producers of that series is tied to this film, and I'd say he/she took the best lessons learned, though not enough of them apparently), and manages to bring in enough of such hacked and over hacked films such as the Saw franchise, but I don't think it has enduring staying power. It would be my hope that this movie is a good one-off and then somebody gets busy doing something new, instead of dragging us through a procession of worsening sequels. I don't feel that Sinister is good enough to deserve a continuing saga, nor for repeated viewing. Maybe for Halloween in a few years, after both its thrills and foibles have lessened in my memory. But the movie is so visceral in places that it will not go away from memory easily, which can ruin repeated viewing without adequate substance underneath to carry it (see Freddy Kruger and the dream/death dilemma).
So my verdict: HERE'S THE PART WHERE YOU CAN COME BACK IN, if you skipped over the spoilers I mentioned I'd be doing. Sinister did what it did fairly well. I came home from the theater with a minor case of the creeps. But I still think The Grudge stayed with me longer. Call me silly, but that one left me looking for spooks and hearing that death rattle noise in the darker parts of my home for days after I first saw it. On the other hand, I fell asleep quite well after seeing Sinister.
For my money, it was probably worth a big theater watch. Despite my grumbles, it did for me well enough. Part of that may be due to the fact that I go to the regular theater so infrequently since we are so poor these days, but that is neither here nor there just now.
Also, Sinister would have been just as worth a cheap seats showing. It would also have been worth a DVD rental too, though the cinematography in here seemed to me better suited to a big screen. The scenes aren't panoramic or anything, but the balance of dark and light seemed well suited to a theater's screen. There is a lot of dark and light contrast in Sinister, which was one of its stronger points. I almost think it would lose something of its punch on a small screen. So I'd recommend seeing it in the theater, if opportunity arises and it interests you.
 |
| In the end, the film did give me some moments epitomized by Ethan Hawke's reaction above. Not a full two hour's worth, but enough that I came away mostly satisfied. / Source: WorkingAuthor.com |
But for me, if I'd seen it in the cheap seats, I think I'd have been just as happy. And I'd probably have said a DVD rental was good too, if that was where I was coming from on this one. So take all of this for what it is worth.
Well, I need to be working on homework. I really am supposed to be doing a draft of a paper for my history course this semester, but I knew writing on the blog, especially something like a review, would help ease my worried mind. Writing can be cathartic for me. That's probably why I write so much at a time. I know readers in this day and age want the "good dirt up front," so to speak. Hey, I feel that way too. But writing is pleasant, and so I do it more than I probably should. Thanks for reading, or at least humoring me.
The parting comment:
 |
| Source: LolSnaps.com, edited by blog author |
When I first got this picture off LolSnaps.com, Sinister was probably still just a somebody's good idea, let alone green-lighted or filmed. But the funny thing is, this image sorta fits the movie. Which is a happy coincidence, and reason enough to include it here. NOTE: I edited this picture to remove something that I hadn't noticed before placing the image on my blog. An honest mistake. I thought the words in question were just squiggles on the dinosaur's body, or maybe an arm or something. Sorry to those who might have seen it and found it off-color. Guess I really should look at stuff I repost more carefully. Oops.
P.S.: Thanks to somebody for taking the time to take the hold off my registration on today (Wednesday), instead of making me wait all weekend. Boy, is that a relief! Now I'm set up for my spring classes. Thank heavens!
No comments:
Post a Comment
We're pleased to receive your comments, but the author does check submissions before attaching them to the blog. See, it's only theoretically a free country in here...