Something Sinister

Something Sinister went well beyond my expectations and frightened me many more times than I anticipated. The film is reminiscent of a lost 70s horror film. The baby cries, door knobs turning, voices from beyond the grave, figures in the background combined with the tense music will have you on edge. It gets your mind racing and wondering, similar to the films The Changeling and Burnt Offerings. Christopher Dye wrote and directed a film that did an excellent job at raising your curiosity and heart rate. Another quality of the film is that many things transpiring and going through Amelia's head were explained to us visually, so there was no overkill of dialogue telling us what's going on.

When the film opens we meet Amelia (Rachel Appelbaum) and Rachel does an astounding job. She plays such a sweet girl, that's scared, a bit crazy, and even suicidal, but through all those behaviors she's still lovable. Then you have her not so lovable Aunt Helen (Maria Olsen) and right off the bat we know that Helen is one mean controlling woman! Maria's character is a combination of Cinderella's stepmother and the mother in Carrie. What impressed me with her character is she's so threatening with her cold looks and expressions in lieu of screaming at Amelia.

Besides being scary Aunt Helen doesn't look good when she locks Amelia in the closet or ties her up to a tree, and she when she…well that's enough spoilers the rest you can watch for yourself. Check it out Something Sinister when it's released. From start to finish you'll be engrossed with Amelia's eerie life and enjoy a frightening time with her.

The atmosphere is the main virtue of this short film in which death rules . A Gothic story in classic style about young girl , her bigot aunt , a child , a witness , the forest as frame of dialogues , murders, revelations and tension.

Not great- in essence only real good point is the baby in arms of Amelie - , not exactly coherent story, not defined by high acting, it is one of short films with very precise target, mixing very familiar themes and creating the expected state from a decent horror.

And, in many senses, it is just enough.

A nice short horror, few forced moments and creepy final. Not great, not bad.

Something Sinister is a highly obscure independent movie that at time of writing has less than 25 views on IMDB. For a 4yr old movie thats outstandingly concerning and suggests the film has had absolutely no advertising.

It tells a very confused story of a woman who lives with her overbearing religious aunt and.....yeah. It's essentially a psychological horror but lacks in both departments.

Incredibly boring, incoherent and poorly made from start to finish this is one of those films that you want to rant about but at the same time don't think it deserves that much coverage.

I'm going to go with the latter and just say this has no redeeming features and is an utter pitiful mess.

The Good:

Lead is the best part of the film

The Bad:

Maria Olsen

Criminally boring

Awful recycled plot

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Staring at the sun is less damaging to your eyes than staring at Maria Olsen