Sinister

SINISTERCrime writer Ellison (Ethan Hawke) walks around in a cardigan. That’s a crime in itself, if only of the fashion variety. Sinister is a mostly commendable supernatural horror, comparable to The Shining in that a writer and his family move out into the wilderness and the scribe lets his psyche get the better of him.

When we meet Ellison, he’s moving into his new abode and given a very terse welcome from a Pennsylvania sheriff who is “not a fan” (and yet someone who’s read four of his books). We’d love it if we had non-fans as devoted to our writing! [Please see DEATH BY UMBRELLA! The 100 Weirdest Horror Movie Weapons] Also, his kids object that they’ll be targeted in school because of dad’s profile. Ah yes, one of those “extremely popular with kids, true-crime writers.”

His wife, who’s had no trouble with his line of work before, starts lambasting him for his vocational choice when she finds out about the subject matter of his latest effort. But it’s not like his previous efforts detailed crimes of the Barnie Madoff variety. They were pretty violent and lurid too.

In the bungalow basement Ellison finds some mysterious 70s Super 8 mm film. Unfortunately, it’s not from the Golden Age of Porn; rather, it’s disturbing footage of the deaths of four people by hanging. He decides to edit the film, as a first-timer, completely shrouded in darkness (as one is wont to do).

Soon, his  his son is experiencing night terrors and depicting the hanging in his art, driving Ellison deeper into the mystery.

Sinister-hanging-This, we soon find out, involves the puzzling “Mr Boogie,” which sounds like a deep album cut by The Gap Band.

Sinister delivers the shocks for the most part. Like most horror films, this one is much better on a big screen (where this reviewer originally saw it). And it’s better for having the cool Vincent D’Onofrio in it as that ubiquitous horror movie staple, the anthropologist. Also, mad props for actually using Google’s search engine instead of some made-up-for-the-movies version.

Sinister is a wonderful exploration of darkness, with enough real-world creep factor to put it a troposphere above its usually tepid PG brethren, even if it doesn’t shoot for the moon.

While by no means great, if all supernatural horrors were this good, it wouldn’t be our least favorite horror sub-genre.

Of course, that’s just an opinion. To quote another Ellison (sci fi writer Harlan): “You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion.” It’s possible we haven’t given supernaturals their fair shake.

***1/2 (out of 4)

Friday the 13th Part III

FRIDAY-the-13th-3In Friday the 13th Part III, we get three Jason incarnations: The Town That Dreaded Sundown Jason as well as Unmasked and Masked Jason.

However it was the goalie mask version of the Crystal Lake butcher, unveiled for the first time here, that captured the public’s attention, catapulting the character to the very top echelon of horror film iconography.

Part III has a madman-on-the-loose, talky, suspense-filled slow burn as its first half. That’s followed by more camp than a 1000 Crystal Lakes second, complete with an extremely silly biker gang shoehorned in to up the body count.

However it’s the latter part that also features the three things we’ve come to expect from the Friday the 13th series:

  1. The infamous goalie mask, which changed horror, Halloween and pop culture forever.
  2. The upping of the indestructibility ante. The newly masked Jason became (and continues to be) a Timex Jason*: he takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.  Here, a hatchet, shovel, chunk of firewood, knife to the hand and knee, and a hanging prove ineffective.
  3. Galileo may have discovered the mathematical formulation for the Law of Falling Bodies, but in Friday, it’s put into practice with dead victims flopping down onto people trying to get away. How the killer times these just right is anybody’s guess.

*with fewer people wearing a watch these days, this is a dated reference indeed.

Friday the 13th Part III also features all the horror folks we’ve come to know and love vacationing in the woods. There’s the butcher, baker and candlestick maker of horror – here the hotties, the jock, the joker/fatty and the stoner.

Friday-the-13th-Part-III-Jason-VoorheesIndefatigable joker/fatty Shelly – sympathetic if he weren’t such a desperate misogynist – sports a giant Afro mane resembling two Rosses: insult comic and roast-master Jeff and PBS painter Bob.

He’s the one pulling the pranks, donning a wet suit to emerge from the lake after dark and burying a prop hatchet in his own head. And Shelly is the one jump-scaring everyone with a Jacques Plante goalie mask from the early 60s that the killer would later don.

Part III doesn’t quite come together as a cohesive whole. The subtle Hitchcockian suspense of the start is jettisoned in favor of over-the-top kills and silliness. However, a few of these kills are bona fide classics, including the harpoon eye-piercing. And you can’t beat the Manfredini score and the hat-trick that is the Jason mask.

*** (out of 5)

CHECK OUT OUR DISCUSSION OF FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 ON THE REALLY AWFUL MOVIES PODCAST!!!!