Sinister (2012)Sinister is a supernatural horror film, produced in 2012. It follows the story of Ellison Oswalt, a true crime writer, who moves his family into a home in which a different family of four were hung on a tree. He comes across a box full of tapes, showing many different violent murders. He tries to investigate them while balancing it with his family life. The film was directed by Scott Derickson. It included actor Ethan Hawke, who plays the lead role Ellison. Sinister was a massive box office success, bringing in $77.7 million as of October 2015. This contributed to a huge profit, as the film had only a $3 million budget in the first place. Me, Megan and Dan decided to analyse the introduction to this as it is simple, yet effective, and covers many themes for a horror movie in just the first 10 minutes.
The movie starts by showing us a family of four under a tree, with hoods over their heads and nooses around their necks. The branch is then sawed off, causing the family to be pulled into the air, and strangling them. We can tell that they're dead as when they're first lifted into the air, they are flailing about, but eventually their bodies become limp. This scene is powerful. It is roughly one minute long, and all you can hear is the whirring of the film tape, this makes it very eerie as we can't actually hear what is going on, leaving us on edge. The identity of the supposed villain is kept hidden during the opening scenes of the movie too, leaving us wondering what they will be like. This scene is also very vague, it leaves us asking questions, such as - Who are the people being hung? Who did it? And, why did they do it?
The colours in this scene play a big part in creating an eerie atmosphere, they are primarily green and grey, which are dark. We're made to feel on edge as we cannot see past the large trees in the background. There are a few seconds in this scene at the end where nothing is happening, which keeps us on edge, as if we are going on horror stereotypes, we would expect a jump-scare, which didn't actually come. This shot is filmed with an old fashioned camera, we know this as it is the only sound we can hear, helping us to detect the genre of the movie, which is clearly horror. Due to the pauses before and after the hanging, we can tell that it is raw footage, and has not been edited in any way (if you're looking at the perspective from inside the movie).
The second part of the introduction is where we meet Ellison and his family. We see that he has a wife, a 12 year old son, and a 7 year old daughter. The mise-en-scene helps us to understand what is going on, there are cardboard boxes everywhere, which signifies that they are moving into a new house. This helps us to relate to the characters in the film, as the place is new to them as well, so everything is unexpected. The camera follows Ellson in third person, as he strides around the house, smiling and talking to his family, this shows us that they appear to be happy altogether. It also makes us feel uneasy however, as at this point, we know it is a horror movie, therefore we assume that something bad will eventually happen to them. We meet two other characters here too, the police officers. They mention that the house is in the middle of nowhere, which makes the family seem isolated and vulnerable.
The target audience for this movie is the same sort of target audience we're looking at for our production. The age rating is 15, which is surprisingly low in my opinion, when you look at all of the graphic content included. This film also links to our demographic as it joins us in trying to appeal to people who enjoy suspenseful horror, rather than those with mindless jump-scares littered throughout.
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