Sinister has one or two effective moments. The opening footage was easily the best bit for me - I found it genuinely creepy. However, the movie is otherwise encumbered its by many notable flaws. Ethan Hawke's character - lead protagonist Ellison - is hard to empathise with: by his own standards, the character is a sell-out. Since the majority of the run-time is spent with him, the film remains emotionally unengaging. That his family all but vanish by the final reel underscores how incidental they are to the plot. Moreover, the scares are mainly limited to sudden appearances and loud noises. Lead antagonist "Mr Boogie" looks like a guy forced to go to a fancy-dress party in an improvised Brandon Lee/The Crow costume. Thankfully the "creepy" moments are predominantly centred around ghostly children, although I found them entirely unscary. For these reasons Sinister's finale is a washout. As a fair warning, the poster announces that Sinister was brought to us by the producers of Insidious, a film that suffers from almost identical shortcomings. That said, if you enjoyed Insidious, you may well respond to Sinister more positively than I did.
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