Sinister (2012)

I’ve watched a lot of movies throughout my life, meaning it’s hard to keep the plots of them all straight in my head. I know that Sinister is a movie about a writer discovering several snuff tapes, but I don’t remember a lot of the events around it all that much. I don’t really need to, though, because Sinister’s eeriest moments have been burned into my brain since my very first viewing.

Sinister’s most spine-tingling stuff are the snuff tapes that Ethan Hawke’s character watches over the course of the film. Each begins and ends in much the same way: an unseen figure seemingly records a family from a distance. In the videos, they are often enjoying time together, either in their living rooms or maybe by the pool. Nonetheless, the fact that they’re being observed prompts a sense of dread that is only made worse by the sudden shifts in the home video. Without fail, the happy scene of domesticity gives way to a murder. The kills aren’t gory or flashy, and in fact the camcorder sometimes seems like it’s struggling to make sense of the action, but the sound editing in these moments, as well as the unnerving and choppy footage, never fail to make me shudder. — Moises Taveras