#i watched this movie in like late 2013 in broad daylight

[all-souls-matinee]

3. Sinister (2012)

dir. Scott Derrickson

Runtime: 109 minutes

Availability: Amazon Prime, YouTube

The plot is Hollywood horror at its most marketable. Man moves white middle class nuclear family into white middle class nuclear house for a ‘fresh start’, turns out house is demon haunted, people die horribly, and just when they think they’ve beaten the demon it comes back for one last scare. Most of said scares are simple cuts and loud noises engineered to make you jump out of your seat, and the boogieman design is from outsourced concept art that seemed creepy to producers, with a name made to sound both ‘pagan’ and ‘Babylonian’ (read: foreign).

So I HATE that this movie scares the everliving shit out of me.

I think the horror manages to elevate itself in a couple of different ways. First, Ethan Hawke is playing an Obsessive suited to a Hitchcock suspense thriller rather than the dad in a cheap haunted house flick. He’s not an everyman trying to do right by his family; he buys the place knowing people have been killed there hoping it’ll inspire him as a writer, and spends every night drinking whiskey and watching 8 MM snuff films in a pitch black attic (turn on the lights in your fucking house challenge.) The first two acts unravel almost as a procedural, with mr. husband-of-the-year and cop-friend playing detective with the films and wondering what demon Bughuul’s angle is. Most supernatural horror movies have a ‘figuring out how the bad guy works’ bit, but it’s often kept to a single scene, and I love when they instead manage to stretch that element slowly throughout the runtime.

Then there are the tapes themselves, which are rough on the ol eyeballs to say the least. We watch them alongside husband-of-the-year, and they are played as straight found footage snuff films. Demonic faces later found hidden in plain sight on each tape (fuck!!!!) adds a layer to the horror rather than being the only point to it, and the same can be said of the sound design, AKA the worst thing I have ever experienced. It’s so disjointed and jarring it makes me feel physically ill, adding something really rich and dreadful to the atmosphere.

Anything outside of the world of the tapes leans a little to heavily on mainstream 2010s horror tropes, which is a shame because the tapes take a backseat the entire third act of the movie. Act three relies almost entirely on writing (not the movie’s strong suit) and jumpscares but Even More (bad) to carry us over the finish line, and while it keeps up the atmosphere it’s mostly with the help of that goddamn sound design.

Trigger warnings: violence-wise? everything under the sun. the snuff films are not for the faint of heart as we’re now getting into the 2010s era of ‘’’‘realistic’’’ horror- watch out for hanging, burning, drowning, evisceration, ect

[oatmilkovich]

tagged by @xgoldendays and @smokey-mickey for a little shameless get to know you game! thank you, you two ❤️

when did you start watching shameless?

march (?) 2013! i was 15 and the show was half way through airing season 3. i became hooked and stuck with it religiously until 5x12. then i took a 4 season sabbatical and rolled in for mickey’s reintroduction as a main character.

how did you start getting involved in the gallavich fandom?

i’ve had this blog for the last 10 years so it’s seen everything — including my original shameless run — and this also means that navigating fandom spaces is very second nature-y for me so as soon as i found out ian and mickey were getting married and i rewatched the entire show, i quickly realised that i was seriously getting back into the show and began to look for accounts to follow and content to engage with! i also started to write what would eventually turn out to be my first multi chapter. i think i just started writing posts to get involved — i can’t make gifs or anything like that. i tend to use both twitter and tumblr fandom spaces but have found increasingly recently that the tumblr spaces are much much more pleasant! this is especially apparent for our lil fandom ❤️

favourite shameless character? (other than ian & mickey of course)

lip! fiona, sheila

what plotline from the show irked you the most?

i started to list many, many of the top offenders (looking at you: gay jesus, kev and v calling ICE on svet, mickey going to prison for attempted murder and then the gallaghers throwing their father off a bridge in broad daylight and walking away scot-free) but we all know when the plot lines took a massive nose dive. truthfully for a sl that irks me, i’d probably have to go with landlord fiona — i know she came out the other side, but it’s so difficult to watch someone who grew up w such shelter insecurity to do it to other people (especially young, gay, houseless youth) — i feel it lacked nuance and a lot of the stuff they had her do later on leant into the ‘i suffered so you have to suffer too’ trope.

favourite line from the show?

it’s, uhhh, a figure of speech. it’s like saying ‘none of your business’… ‘your dick’s in my dad’s mouth, man’

fanfic(s) you can’t stop thinking about (not comprehensive but some initial thoughts):

i have way way way too many so these are three random ones that are always knocking around my head: 

boy in the box - mellow_yellow (or anything by them) rookie mistakes - delgay  someone to hold me up - westernrecedar

(plus the usual suspects like cg! and anything by my talented friends! you’re all amazing!) 

best concert(s) you’ve been to

i’m severely lacking in gigs experiences but bruno mars’ 24k magic tour, lady gaga’s artRAVE and that BRIT awards show where madonna fell over mid-performance.

comfort movie franchise

it’s been a while since i engaged w it for obvious reasons but harry potter, and then probably also star wars. 

piercings/tattoos?

ears! i want a second set at least in my ears. no tattoos yet but watch this space 👀

most rewatched tv show?

cough glee or one tree hill

pet peeves

PUTTING OUTDOOR CLOTHING! ON YOUR BED! SHOES! 

random fact about yourself

i’ve never had my nails professionally done or worn fakes, but love painting my nails and my favourite thing to do is paint a different colour on each nail. i do it all the time. 

i’m not sure who has done this one - as again, i’m a little late! if you want to be tagged, please please consider yourself tagged by me! i really need to get round to doing these quicker 🙄❤️