Sinister (2012)

Overview

Four years running, the Science of Scare project has wired hundreds of viewers to heart-rate monitors, sat them in front of 250 horror films, and measured what actually scares people. Sinister keeps winning. Not with jump scares — well, not only with jump scares — but with a dread that climbs into your chest and stays there, which is exactly why it just topped the 2026 Science of Scare results again.

Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) writes true-crime books — or he used to. His hits are a decade behind him and the bills are not, so chasing one more bestseller he moves his family into a house where the previous family died, and he doesn’t tell them. In the attic he finds a box of Super 8 reels with cheerful labels — Pool Party ’66, Lawn Work ’86, Sleepy Time ’98 — and every one of them is a family being murdered by somebody who never appears on camera. The films are offerings to Bughuul, a pagan deity the local kids call Mr. Boogie, who eats children. And the more Ellison watches, the more the thing in the film starts watching back.

Director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill built all of that for about $3 million, and it went on to make over $82 million worldwide — found-footage economics carrying a story that actually earns its darkness. The grainy home movies are the scariest thing in it precisely because they look like somebody’s memories. James Ransone nearly steals the film as the starstruck deputy who keeps helping Ellison dig, and Christopher Young’s score sounds like a music box drowning. Plenty of horror movies are loud. This one is patient — and patience, measured in heartbeats, is what keeps it at number one.

At a glance

Director	Scott Derrickson
Release year	2012
Runtime	110 minutes
Genre	Supernatural horror
Starring	Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, James Ransone

Plot

Ellison Oswalt writes true-crime books that used to sell. He moves his family into a house where a murder happened and does not tell them that part. In the attic he finds a box of Super 8 films. Each reel is a family being killed. A figure stands in the backgrounds. Ellison watches more reels than a person should, and the house starts to answer.

A local deputy helps him trace the films. The pattern is not a copycat in the ordinary sense. Children go missing from each scene. The figure has a name in the research, Bughuul, and a hunger for an audience. Ellison’s book is the wrong reason to stay.

Production

Scott Derrickson directed it from a script he wrote with C. Robert Cargill. The idea started with a nightmare of Cargill’s about finding a film in an attic. Blumhouse and Alliance produced it. Ethan Hawke plays Ellison. The budget was about $3 million. It opened in October 2012 and grossed about $77 million worldwide, which is why a sequel exists.

The Super 8 reels were shot to look like home movies, not like the rest of the film. Christopher Young wrote the score, with licensed tracks under the murder films, including a Board of Canada cue. Sinister 2 (2015) follows the deputy and a different family. Derrickson did not direct it. He and Cargill later made The Black Phone, another story about missing children and a voice from somewhere else.

Cast

Ethan Hawke as Ellison Oswalt
Juliet Rylance as Tracy Oswalt
James Ransone as Deputy So-and-So
Michael Hall D’Addario as Trevor
Clare Foley as Ashley
Vincent D’Onofrio as Professor Jonas

Trivia

The deputy’s credit name is So-and-So. The film never gives him a real one.
Hawke has said he took the role because the script was mean to the writer, not in love with him.
Bughuul’s design was kept simple: a face, a stare, no speech.
The opening murder is shown before the titles. The film does not pretend the reels are fake.
Derrickson and Cargill are the same pair behind The Black Phone.
The sequel follows the deputy. Ellison’s story ends in this film.