SINISTER

About The Production
When the riveting opening scene of Sinister unspools on the screen, audiences will have no doubt that they are at the beginning of a chilling and suspense-driven ride. A family of four stands beneath a tree in a suburban backyard, hoods hiding their faces and nooses around their necks. As an unseen figure saws away a branch, the bound family members are hoisted into the air in slow motion, kicking and struggling for air until they finally all dangle silently. Shot on grainy Super 8 film, the sequence is at once completely ordinary and entirely horrific, as a commonplace setting becomes a killing ground. Fittingly, that opening image, which was the inspiration for the script that became Sinister, first came to co-writer C. Robert Cargill in a nightmare.

Cargill, best known as blogger massawyrm of the pop culture web site, Ain't It Cool News, dreamed he found a box of Super 8 films in his attic. Watching the films, he was horrified to witness the murder that became Sinister's opening image. He was unable to shake his revulsion and fear even after awakening.

"The image just wouldn't let go," he says. "I remember vividly hearing the sound of the Super 8 projector and then seeing the tree with four people lined up beneath it. I couldn't get it out of my head. Eventually, I realized it would be the basis for a really good movie. I kicked the idea around for a couple of years until it all finally came together."

A film critic for more than ten years, Cargill has seen his share of horror films, from acclaimed classics to little-known sleepers. One of his core beliefs about the genre is that it is essential to establish the menace from the beginning. "This is something nobody's ever done before," he says. "It will scare the crap out of people. It comes from nowhere and you will have no idea what's coming next, but you will know that this is not going to end well. At the very first test screening, that shot came up and people in the audience gasped. And I thought, good, it worked."

After Cargill worked out the details of his story, he contacted his friend Scott Derrickson, director and writer of the horror hit The Exorcism of Emily Rose. "Scott was a fan of my writing on Ain't It Cool News," he explains. "We became friends after he wrote to me to thank me for turning him on to films that he might have missed. We both happened to be in Las Vegas and, after a couple of drinks, I pitched the idea to him."

Derrickson, a longtime aficionado of the genre, says Cargill may be the only person he knows who has seen more horror films than he has. "I have a lot of respect for his opinion of movies," the director says. "He pitched me the story of Sinister, beginning, middle and end, in about three or four minutes. And I said, 'write it down in a page, quick.' We registered it with the Writer's Guild and a week later we were in producer Jason Blum's office pitching it to him."

Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, producer of the highly successful Paranormal Activity trilogy, recognized the potential in Cargill and Derrickson's story and put them to work on a full script immediately. The company's prolific output is driven by a philosophy that puts ideas in the forefront. "We look for high-concept movies that can be done inexpensively," he says. "More often than not those are horror movies, but they don't have to be. Sinister fit our needs because it has that high concept and it is physically contained, which is very specifically what the company's looking for.

"Scott and Cargill walked me through the movie, and six months after that we were shooting it," he continues. "In scary movies, I always like to see a great dramatic story with scares that underpin the horror factor. They had a great story about how a man's ambition affects his family life folded into a solid horror movie. It's seriously scary without being super bloody."

Blum already admired Derrickson's work, especially The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It was that, coupled with Derrickson's clear vision for the movie that made the producer want to work with him. "He had complete creative control. He's really one of the stronger directors out there and he really loves scary movies. I know that good ones are very hard to make and he's one of the few people who's really able to pull them off."

Blumhouse's reputation for respecting directors and writers made the company Cargill and Derrickson's first choice. "Jason is the only producer I've met in Hollywood who fully grasps the idea that creative people should be creating and that business people should be tending to business," says Derrickson. "He allows committed artists to do what they do well, and he prospers from that if the movie is good. Writers write the scripts, directors direct. I had final cut on the movie for the first time in my career.

"And so far his track record is stunning, because he picks talented people who understand the genre that they're working in. It's so much fun for everybody involved because it's nothing but positive energy all the time."

As Cargill and Derrickson began writing their first script together, they developed an unusual and efficient method of collaborating. "It seems weird that we're in different cities and writing together," says Cargill. "But many writing partnerships don't happen in the same room anyway. Scott's a day guy, a nine-to- fiver. I'm a coffee-swilling night owl. He's getting off work when I'm getting up, so he passed off his stuff to me and then I worked through the night. When he woke up, my stuff was waiting."

With a 24-hour workday between them, they were able to complete the script in only five weeks, working from an outline that Derrickson drafted. "It included all the fundamental scenes," he says. "And then we just divvied it up and wrote different pieces at different times and rewrote everything that the other person wrote. It was such a fast, fluid process of writing and rewriting that now it's hard to remember who wrote what."

Both writers adhered to the idea that characters and story came first, and the film's terrifying scares grew out of that. "So many horror directors don't take the dramatic aspects of their story as seriously as the horror aspects," says Derrickson. "They are committed to trying to make their movie scary and shocking, but not as committed to making the dramatic moments truthful and real. We believe that if your characters are realistic and your audience feels for them, everything else is going to be scarier."

Cargill adds: "One of the things that scares people the most is the idea that something is wrong within the family. We all want to believe that love exists and that a single mistake by a family member isn't the end of everything. Here we have a father who's deliberately exposing his family to danger. The main character ends up endangering himself and his family, and ultimately the family will pay the price for that."

More than 10 years as a film critic have convinced Cargill that horror is the last truly pure version of cinema. "When you break down any other genre, it is not purely about the story. With romantic comedy, it's about two superstars. An action film or a science fiction film is about the special effects and the budget. But when people watch the trailer for a horror film, you want them to say, that sounds like a really good idea."

Both writers cite influences that include classic horror films from the 1960s through the 1980s, including The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby and The Shining, as well as films by Wes Craven, John Carpenter and Guillermo Del Toro. "The Shining was certainly the number one influence on the tone," says Derrickson. "It was an attempt to be a serious and elevated horror film about a central character who is a writer going down a very dark path."

The best horror films, he believes, are great not just because of their scariness, but because of the dramatic aspects of the story. "And for me, it's about trying to make the best kind of horror film I can. The Exorcist has a level of shock and awe that make it my favorite horror film. But if you watch that film carefully, there's not a lot of screen time committed to the possession and exorcism scenes. There's a tremendous amount of screen time dedicated to Father Karras' journey of faith and the mystery of his lost faith. All of these great horror films have dramatic aspects to them that are as high quality as the horror aspects of them."

Next Production Note Section

TOP

Home | Theaters | Video | TV