Monday, March 18, 2013

Sinister - Maybe the Best Horror Sound Design Ever



I finally watched 2012's Sinister last night. I missed it at the theatre last October and had been waiting to see it ever since. I'd heard a lot of good things about it from people whose opinions I trust and I am ALWAYS looking for genuinely scary horror movies so I had a pretty mean case of anticipation/expectation, which can be a dangerous way to go into a flick for the first time.

So what's the verdict? Well, the movie blew me away. There were a few little issues with the supporting cast*, but nothing that can't be overlooked based on how adamantly it was committed to be HORROR. The ending was awesome. But what was even more awesome was the sound design. Holy cow, this is probably the best sound design in a horror flick I've ever heard. I mean, granted it has an edge with modern technology over flicks like Halloween and The Exorcist, so we need to adjust for that, but seriously, it was fantastic. After watching the film I went immediately to purchase the score online and found this great blog The End of Summer that posted some of the tracks left off that album.

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* Primarily the wife, played by Juliet Rylance. I donn't think it's Ms. Rylance's fault but her chaaracter was really nothign more than a plot device, acting the way the story needed her to act by constantly riding Ethan Hawke's Ellison and throwing down ultimatums to amp his character's arc's timeline up. Still, totally overlooking that based on EVERYTHING else about the film. Also, as long as I'm crituqing the 'bad' about the supporting cast I should give props to the fantastic. James Ransone - who plays Deputy "so and so" is absolutely fantastic as a cop who, against his sheriff's decree, wants to act as Ellison's inside information man just to get a thank you in the next book. I expect we'll see more good stuff from Mr. Ransone, he was just that good.

1 comment:

Tommy said...

Ditto on the sound. This is probably one of the better horror flicks i've seen in a long while (that wasn't self-referencing or satire or anything like that), and through the entire film, my wife kept saying how creeped out she was by the score and sound editing. To me, it is the sound of a snuff film, and that makes me as uneasy as all get out. They did a fantastic job.