SINISTER (2012)

A true crime writer (Ethan Hawke), desperate for another hit, moves his family, (without telling them of the houses' history!!!), to a house where the previous family was executed.  The four murders were never solved.  On moving day, he finds a box in the attic labeled "home movies".  He watches the films and they end up being snuff films of a mysterious dude called Mr. Boogie killing families.  Hawke is understandably freaked out, but not enough to call the cops because he thinks that the films could be used as material for his next bestseller.  Soon, things start going bump in the night and any tension or creepiness that was created early on in the film with the snuff films is soon replaced by a by-the-numbers final act that any observant horror fan could see coming a mile away.

The first glimpse of Mr. Boogie (underwater in a snuff film) was truly terrifying, but then, as time goes by, the mystery is replaced with the standard supernatural demon stuff and I started to get bored.  Definite kudos for a creepy idea and the awesome snuff films, but overall SINISTER is a cool idea that became a missed opportunity thanks to a inconsistent script, a weak finale, unneeded jump scenes, Hawke's complete disregard for his family's safety and a killer that started out cool but in the end turned out to be a dork.

Not a bad film, but I personally think the entire thing would have been creepier if Mr. Boogiebritches was a real person and not just another demon-black-metal-wrestler-looking Slipknot reject.  Yawn! 

Worth a watch, but nothing to get excited about.  Hell, there's not even any nudity or blood!

Part 2 - Sinister 2 (2015)

DAYBREAKERS (2009)

A few decades in the future a virus has turned the majority of people turn into vampires who dress like they live in the 1940's and drive cars that make a bizarre wrrrrrrrrrrrrr sound. To satisfy the populations demand for human blood, corporations hunt and farm humans for their blood. But Ethan Hawke doesn't drink human blood and even tries to help some humans he's found.

Interesting concept, but DAYBREAKERS is not an interesting movie. Which is sad because I really like the idea of a vampire world, there's some many ways the story could go (do the vampires breed?, do they have churches? if a vampire is trapped in a child's body can it legally have sex with an "adult"? what's it like for the vampires that have day shift jobs? are there vampire animals? do vampires want to explore outer space?, etc.).  Instead DAYBREAKERS boringly narrows the story down to hematologist Ethan Hawke who is working on a blood substitute. By chance, he nearly has a car wreck with a band of human refugees who have teamed up with ex-vampire Willem Dafoe.  Ex-vampire you ask?  Yes, he used to be a vampire until a car wreck cured him...or something.  I don't know.

Anyway, boring story stuff happens until finally some machine guns come out and something happens or not. Once I saw this was just another Hollywood by-the-numbers small band of people vs. the Big Corporation/Government story I started daydreaming about taking a nap.

Very little violence, CGI blood, zero gore, boring vampire world. Skip it.