“Sinister”: The Parental Fear of Child Neglect
Okay, first and foremost, I’m putting up some warnings: a spoiler warning for the end of the movie (if you haven’t seen it, I’d highly recommend going into it with no spoilers) and content warning since I’ll be briefly discussing some parts of the movie that are pretty dark.
Alright, now that that’s out of the way, let me begin. I watched Sinister again last night through a more philosophical lens (something I’ve found fun to try with horror movies) and I noticed something. Sinister isn’t about gruesome familicide or the terrifying face of the Boogeyman. It’s really about the fear of losing time with one’s family and, more specifically, one’s children.
Throughout the movie, our protagonist, Ethan Hawke — I mean Ellison Oswald, is trying to write a true crime book about a morbid homicide/kidnapping in his new home. He says he’s doing this to get his family back on track money-wise, a “just one more” kind of deal but, as the film goes on, it’s clear that he’s really trying to catch his big break into stardom. He dives headlong into tape after tape of horrible deaths trying to find a connection between them that no one else has in order to write a novel that could serve as his redemption for the outcome of his last book, as well as his vehicle for fame. While doing all of this, he distances himself from his wife and children, focusing all day on work instead of spending time with his family.
I think you can see where I’m going with this: he’s working all day and away from his family, a common issue for parents in the modern age. But there’s even more to it than that. Throughout the movie, Ellison watches both these “snuff films” and old interviews of himself just after the release of his last big hit. These act almost like foils of one another, serving as visions of his past and, unbeknownst to him, his future. The interviews depress him because he’s not the man he once was, and the other tapes depress him because… well, I hope I don’t have to explain that one. So, as shown through the many different tapes, he’s living in the past while working towards a future built on his own self-righteousness and greed. I know that sounds a little extreme, because he isn’t a bad guy with bad goals, but when you boil it all down, that really is what it is.
Now, here’s where the main point I realized comes in. At the end of the movie, Ellison is killed by his daughter who is under the control of Bughuul (the Pagan name for the Boogeyman), but the symptoms of her ‘possession’ are clear to the viewer long before it goes all the way. She draws paintings on the walls of past Bughuul murders she could have little to no way of knowing about, speaks to the ghosts of children, and that’s not to mention her brother experiencing the worst night terrors of his life every single night. But Ellison either dismisses or refuses to fully acknowledge these things before it’s too late, all because he’s so enveloped in his dreams. All of this is an extreme demonstration of this parenthood fear that we’re missing out on the growth of our children because of our needs/desires to both provide for them and continue to pursue our own dreams.
In almost any real case, this fear never culminates to one losing their life to their children, but the idea of losing a child to any sort of evil is quite similar. So, the message of the movie is that people should appreciate and be involved with their children, because while the pursuit of riches and fame might make their lives easier in the long run (if it ever even works out), it will slowly make that fear come to fruition if you’re not careful. That’s my analysis, anyways.
Also, a quick side note: The final line of the movie is “Don’t worry, Daddy. I’ll make you famous again”, spoken by Ellison’s daughter before she tapes his death. This is a message about what children learn from their parents’ flaws. All she sees of her father is his desire for fame, and so she (in her deranged Bughuul-influenced state) thinks she’s helping him because he’ll be immortalized in her “film”. Just a thought.
Lastly, I’d like to give a big thanks to Fandom Fanatics for the opportunity to write for the publication! If any of you like this type of article let me know and I’ll definitely do some more. Thanks so much!
