We’ve fallen a little behind on recent releases, finally reviewing the new Bond last week. This week, we consider this season’s most ambitious release, an adaptation of a complex novel into history’s most expensive independent film.

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In 1981, Universal adapted Peter Straub’s horror novel into a film. It’s a fascinating take on the story, featuring the final performances of some famous names, but it makes significant changes to the source material. This works both in the film’s favour, and against it.

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The footage is grainy Super 8. A family of four, mom and dad and the kiddies, stand with hands tied behind their backs and bags over their heads. Nooses tighten ’round their necks; the other end of the rope attaches to the old tree in the back yard. A large limb counterbalances them; when an unseen hand saws it off, the fine folk lift off the ground, struggling against strangulation.

The family had a fifth member, a little girl. She remains missing….

In this media-saturated culture, it’s damnably difficult to produce a game changer, something genuinely fresh in horror. Sinister doesn’t really try, though it brings its own twisted mix to the genre, blending conventional and found footage horror. What it really succeeds in doing…

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