It stars Ethan Hawke as a struggling true-crime writer whose discovery of snuff films depicting gruesome murders and strange supernatural elements in his new house puts his family in danger.

Juliet Rylance, Fred Thompson, James Ransone, Clare Foley, Michael Hall D'Addario, and Vincent D'Onofrio appear in supporting roles.

A 2020 study by Broadband Choices named Sinister the scariest film ever made, based on an analysis of viewer heart rates.

[9] True crime writer Ellison Oswalt moves into a home in the town of Chatford, Pennsylvania, with his wife Tracy, their son Trevor, and daughter Ashley.

Ellison's first book was wildly successful when he discovered new evidence which led to the capture of the perpetrator, but his subsequent works were flops, leaving the family in a precarious financial position.

Ellison is torn between turning the videos over to the police and the tantalizing realization that he may have uncovered the heretofore unknown existence of a serial killer and what that would mean for his new book.

Inside the film reels' canister lid, he finds a king snake and childlike doodles of the killings, with a figure called "Mr.

The "Extended Cut" depicts the missing children coming onscreen following each murder, revealing themselves to be the culprit influenced by Bughuul - "Mr.

The box of films is shown sitting in the Oswalt family's attic, now accompanied by Ashley's reel titled House Painting '12, before Bughuul suddenly appears.

Cargill's idea was that the creature would be both terrifying and seductive to children, luring them to their dooms as a sinister Willy Wonka-like figure.

[11] Cargill and co-writer Scott Derrickson ultimately decided to downplay the creature's alluring nature, only intimating how it manipulates the children into murder.

Boogie, the pair had lengthy discussions about its nature, deciding not to make it a demon but rather a Pagan deity, in order to place it outside the conceptual scope of any one particular religion.

[11][12] In crafting a look for Bughuul, Cargill initially kept to the idea of a sinister Willy Wonka before realizing that audiences might find it "silly" and kill the potential for the film becoming a series.

Derrickson explained that the image appealed to him because it reminded him of the makeup and costumes worn by performers in black metal, while remaining unique enough so as not to be directly linked to the genre; Derrickson had previously researched black metal while looking for inspiration for Bughuul's symbol, which is ritualistically painted at the scene of each of the film's murder sequences.

[11][12] Some of the background music for these murder sequences was taken from ambient tracks by bands associated with the Norwegian black metal scene, including Ulver and Aghast.

[13] Principal photography for Sinister began in autumn of 2011, after Ethan Hawke and Juliet Rylance signed on to star in the film.

[18] The critical consensus states "Its plot hinges on typically implausible horror-movie behavior and recycles countless genre cliches, but Sinister delivers a surprising number of fresh, diabolical twists.

[21] Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, criticizing a few obvious horror tropes but praising Hawke's performance and calling it "an undeniably scary movie.

[25] Reviewer Garry McConnachie of Scotland's Daily Record rated the film four of five stars, saying, "This is how Hollywood horror should be done... Sinister covers all its bases with aplomb.

"[26] Ryan Lambie of Den of Geek gave the film three out of five stars, and wrote that despite its faults, "there's something undeniably powerful about Sinister.

Hawke's performance holds the screen through its more hackneyed moments, and it's the scenes where it's just him, a projector, and a few feet of hideous 8 mm footage where the movie truly convinces.

[36] On April 17, 2014, it was announced that Ciaran Foy would direct the film, and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Charles Layton, Xavier Marchand and Patrice Théroux would executive produce the sequel with eOne Entertainment.