MovieChat Forums > Sinister (2012) Discussion > The Ending is....

The Ending is....

posted 10 years ago by rockpig
25 replies | jump to latest

Genius.

I love that ending, a lot of people complain about how it's a depressing ending & it's so downbeat & they were hoping for a happy ending. It's a horror film. They're suppose to be dramatic & haunting & that ending was perfect. The whole film had a cold & dark atmosphere & it kept it till the very end. You'd expect nothing less from a movie thats called 'Sinister'

Happy campy endings to horror films belong in the 80's & 90's, more horror films need more darker tones these days, I think Sinister is one of the more better horror films of the last decade, it does have it cliche horror moments but despite that I think its a great horror film.

If a horror movie makes you feel scared & uncomfortable & sticks with you long after the movie's over then it's done it's job & thats exactly what Sinister did for many viewers.

Sininster: 9/10

[–] Velvet_Roses 10 years ago

Personally I think yeah, it's a horror movie and it should be gloomy till the end - and it was ! But somehow to me this ending seemed forced. For a bit more than a decade, it seems screenwriters have been systematically creating fatalist endings just to avoid the happy picnic ending and at times it just does not work. And the effect is that one becomes so used to seeing them that they see it coming miles ahead. Personally as soon as they started speaking of families getting killed I knew how the movie was gonna end simply basing on this recent trend... Ans some of the best movie endings I've seen were from the 70s/80s ; the Crazies, Texas Chainsaw, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Evil Dead come to mind. Thing is, sometimes the gloomy ending seemed forced, and I think that's what people resent, even though they can't quite put their finger on it.

Nonetheless I really liked the movie though. :P

[–] rockpig 10 years ago

Yeah your right that is true, some movies do force it to avoid the happy ending. But i actually didn't see the ending coming to be honest, I was actually startled & disturbed the whole movie I didn't know what was coming next. There is ups & downs to doing dark endings like that is it leaves it open sequels & most of the time they end up being crappy sequels, I seen this movie's got a sequel coming out & I have a feeling its not gonna have the same impact as this one did.

But I loved Sinister, it's definitely one of my favourite horror movies

[–] Velvet_Roses 10 years ago

It's cool for you that you didn't see it coming, I was I had gotten into it the same way you did. I think I've seen too many of these haha !
I'm not getting my hopes up too much on the sequel either, but we'll see. We never know, it might be good too :) I'm still eager to see it, though I'm afraid it'll just ruin this one !

[–] tbonesays 10 years ago

I knew something was going wrong within the family from his conversations with the deputy. But I had no idea who the killer was as that was kept hidden.

[–] jezfernandez 9 years ago

Yep, well put and I agree. This one seemed forced. I really liked Hawke's performance and the way that he came to his senses at the end in fleeing the house. It would have been much more interesting if there had been a way to save his family and defeat the Babadook...sorry, Bughuul.

A lot of people fail to grasp that you can have your characters survive and it still be a bleak and unsettling journey. Did anyone get to the end of the Shining and think, "Wow, that was a happy ending!"???

[–] chch-98796 10 years ago

totally agree. It sticks because the evil is left unexplained and is still at large, leaving the viewers the impression that it could happen to anyone. The only thing preventing this movie from being my top horror movie is the depiction of the evil. IMO it is completely unnecessary and counter-productive to show the demon's face or even its human form. Also the slow-mo scene in which kids jump around in the background is rather amusing than scary.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] tbonesays 10 years ago

I rank them as 1. Insidious 2. Sinister 3. Conjuring . . . 1,347. Yellow Brick Road.

[–] CinderFall 10 years ago

Trust me, no horror movie is worse than the fail known as Wedding Slashers. 1,348. Wedding Slashers.

[–] mary-jervis 10 years ago

I really like this type of horror. It is there and it creeps up on you. Unfortunately people want movies like Scream and Saw and other types like them, these aren't bad, just a different type. I watch the creep up on you types. The ending is what you are working for and this has all the makings. This is why I liked the movies from the '20's - '50's all B&W and you didn't see the horror but they made it work.

[–] c_lockitineddie_9588 9 years ago

Hmmm this ending seemed for formulaic than genius. Definitely been done before with the whole "mystery solved and story comes full circle" unhappy ending. Watch skeleton key; same thing.

It would have been better if they'd thrown a bit of a spanner in the works... maybe the daughter comes in to kill him while he is feeling the effects of the poison, but because he has figured it out and knows what is happening he pulls a gun and shoots her.

[–] megaruda 9 years ago

The ending was about to save the movie until the stupid disgusting amateurish last sshot, this movie should of ended with the thing carrying the girl, cut to credits immediately please, do yourself and the audience a favour, we will forget about the irrational decisions the characters did, we will even forget about how little of the visual action we were able to catch becauase of the awkward direction, just please cut the damm movie one shot earlier. Thanks.

[–] The-Massi 9 years ago

I hear you!

[–] oystergirl94 9 years ago

I agree that the ending is excellent. I desire dark, disturbing, haunting, and meaningful, and this was all those things for me. I love how the story has a moral too. I just thought the ending was so perfect.

[–] sbowesuk 9 years ago

One of the big problems with the horror movie genre, are shallow expectations. Many horror movie fans want the same cheap formulaic crap over and over again, and because of that, studios keep churning out crap horror movies.

People want cheap jump scares over tension and suspense. People want happy endings for horror movies. It's retarded. If any genre should be allowed to produce dark endings, it's the horror genre. These whiners who didn't like Sinister's faithful ending, are just sad, shallow individuals.

[–] cougar18 9 years ago

I honestly thought the ending was boring, and predictable. Oh look, it's the kid who hasn't, so far, experienced the night terrors...not a very clever misdirection there, we haven't seen much of her character so it felt tacked on. Knew the kid was evil when it was revealed his daughter was ginger. Hollywood seems to love making kids with red hair evil, them and little girls. And then the 'shock face at the camera' shot which is just old. Just cut to black, don't show anymore. It's more effective.

I also started to wonder 'How the heck is a kid gonna drag her mom, her dad, and her brother all to the same place, knowing they were all over the house? This and the fact that she is 10, maybe 11, she wouldn't have the strength to do so.
But then we are shown the kids who some do crazy stuff like hanging all their family from a tree...eh, no. No kid can do that kind of lifting.
And you can argue 'well, Bughuul did it', but the didn't do much else in terms of moving stuff. So if its up to the kids to do all the lifting and moving, without a hint of their 'supernatural' strength...then again, its not working for me.

The bit with the kids walking around in the background went on for too long, and reminded me of other movies doing similar stunts. It started to look more like a ballet than a horror movie, and it was losing me before that point. I'll give it points for trying, but not for being scary.

[–] sauce1977 9 years ago

Yeah I too thought they botched the ending.

I also don't have a problem with dark endings either. But for what they put into the first two acts, they had something really special going on (especially Hawke and Rylance's acting, I thought they were showing legit terror and believable emotion, loved them both).

Instead of finishing with a longer 3rd act and bringing it all home, they sort of copped out with the whole perpetuated unfortunate end of the family.

I wouldn't have minded if it was the girl being the one possessed by Mr. Boogie, even if it was predictable. But they didn't find a way to work in the other child's night terrors into a useful hurdle in the 3rd act. They also completely wasted the Sheriff's role (he really served no purpose), and I feel the same about the helpful Deputy (he had minor use, as he revealed the predictable address connection). Ditto the Professor (when Hawke's character ended the conversation, I felt like, I dunno, that should have had some resolution, at least Hawke should have answered the professor's question, that was kind of silly to just end the call).

To avoid just being a total critic without construction, I would have liked it much better if they had established that the child possessed by the demon developed super-human abilities to aid them in the murders (which would explain how all those kids miraculously were able to rig up the elaborate murders and carry them out).

The two cops (Sheriff and Deputy) should have played an actual part in that third act. Sheriff could have hindered the Deputy, perhaps, but maybe the Deputy takes a road trip and breaks up the murder of the family (or at least hinders it, leaving the possessed child to hide while the Deputy aids the family in getting untied). The professor could have just provided foreshadowing as to finding an account of what happened in the old days where it gets revealed that the kid possessed by the demon was actually caught by someone back in the middle ages, and they discovered what had happened (leading up to Hawke's drugging).

We could also have seen the demon itself manifest and play another hurdle to help aid the possessed child now that the ritual was broken up, in this case.

All of these ideas I would have found more preferable for a third act, and it would have vaulted the film into being something truly special imo, instead of a good setup that fell flat, as it was.