Sinister (2012) Ending Explained

Sinister (2012) is a supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson. This film was inspired by a nightmare seen by C. Robert Cargill. It stars Ethan Hawke etc.

Sinister (2012) Movie Ending Explained and Plot Twist in Detailed

* * * Spoiler Alert – If you haven’t seen the movie yet, turn back now! * * *

Ellison Oswalt, a murder mystery writer who wrote a huge hit book Kentucky Blood. But he didn’t win any award for that book. He wrote another two books one after another after the Kentucky blood success hoping to win awards but couldn’t make it. Those books were a failure and his bad theory helped the real killer go free.

Ellison stopped writing crime thrillers and was writing school textbooks but he wasn’t happy and around this monotonous time he has found some murder mystery incidents happening in several places. Like before he shifts to the crime scene to write about the mystery but this time his family doesn’t know about the thing. The day he shifts, the Sheriff visits him to warn and suggests to himself to go back but he is not going to listen because he believes this time, he is gonna make it right.

The house he has shifted in is a place where the murder takes place. Four people hung from a tree after being cut by an unseen one in the patio and their little girl Stephenie was missing. He finds a box with a camera inside it and some video reels. He sets up an office where he accumulates some pieces of paper cuts. He sets a projector to watch the reels and at night he watches the first reel. That reel is about the murder of the house he is living in right now. He pours a glass of wine and plays the next.

He sees that the next one is about another family who was murdered being burnt in their car after someone tied them up in the car. Ellison gets surprised to know there is something connected to these reels but he can’t understand why they are here and who made the films.

Having finished two reels, he decides to quit and call the police but he changes his mind immediately. He looks at Kentucky blood and decides to give it a go. He takes another reel but stops there listening to a sound. He thinks it is Ashley, his daughter but sees nothing. He finds a box in front of the door. He walks towards it sheepishly and suddenly Trevor comes out screaming his heart out. Ellison catches him and pacifies him telling it’s just a night terror. After the night Trevor can’t remember anything in the morning.

Ellison takes another reel and finds a pool party video of a family getting drowned in the pool by someone unseen. But the thing that grabbed his eye is a shadowy figure in the pool looking like a ghost. He takes a picture of it and is looking into it. After the school, Tracy and Trevor argue over an incident that happened in the school today. Trevor has drawn a picture of four people hanging from a tree with a permanent marker.

Tracy doesn’t like the matter that Trevor is hearing things about his book and this is not something kids should hear. He watches another reel where people got murdered and someone unseen cut their throats.

He rewatches the footage and finds a sign. He prints it out and pins it to the board. He also finds a place named St. Louis. He googles the news and finds another family who were murdered just like the way it was shown in the film and surprisingly their son went missing. He hears a sound coming from the attic, he goes there but he finds nothing. He goes upstairs and finds a snake under a paper lid of a box and there are some drawings drawn in the paper. He takes it but can’t get himself out safely and falls down breaking the ground.

Police come over to his house to check the incident. He shows them the place and says he heard footsteps but found a snake. The police man is his fan so he gets so excited and wants to see his office. Ell takes him there and wants his help. He gives him two murder mystery cases with dates and tells him to find information about both cases.

Ell carefully watches the drawings on the paper lid and he rewatches the footages again. He finds an unknown existence called Mr. Boogie and he notices a ghostly figure too. He gets a call from the deputy police and he tells some facts about those two cases.

‘There is a family in Sacramento that died in their garage in 1979 and their car was set on fire. One of their sons who was nine years old, they never found him.’

Its address is 8224 Killington, Sacramento. And the other one where Miller murder occurred is 2976 Piedmont Way, St Louis. This is the first turning point of this movie. The Stevensons who died hanging from the tree previously lived in the Millers’’ house. Ell finds his footage of the moment he fell down from the attic where he sees some tiny ghostly hands were pulling him down that night. Ell gets scared and dark the screen.

That night he wakes up at midnight, comes to his office and sees some footage is automatically running on the screen. He stops it and takes a picture of the background with a ghostly figure. He places it in front of him but when he removes it that ghostly figure is seen in front of him. Ell gets flinched but he thinks someone is trying to scare him so he takes a bat and torch to beat him off. But he finds Trevor in the bush and rescues him. As he forgets to take the torch and bat, he goes there but finds a dog acting weird and we see some children behind Ell.

Tracy finds it doubtful that Ell is getting scared frequently so she suspects Ell to bring them to a crime place but Ell makes her believe that everything is fine. He just met a dog that’s why he is looking nervous. Next morning, that deputy policeman comes to his place and shows eagerness to help him unravel the mystery. Ell tells about what he has found over the past few days and he tells him to find out the pool incident place name.

Deputy sees that ghostly figure and a geometrical sign drawn in some crime spot. Deputy doubts it happens to be an occult crime. He knows a professor who has knowledge about the occult. Ell then takes the last film to watch and he watches something terrible. That film shows a sweet family watching television but then we can see a grass cutter that someone was running over the grass and suddenly it runs over a man lying on the grass tied up. Ell emails the Professor and he responds and says this sign was used in worshipping a Pagan deity who usually eats children’s lives.

That night Ell again finds the films are automatically playing at the middle of the night. He stops them and takes his baseball bat. He walks throughout the whole house. We see all five missing children running through the house behind him but Ell can’t see anyone because they hide themselves. We see Stephenie, the missing girl of stevensons and the rest from the millers, the burnt car, the pool and the lawn murder. Every child’s soul is roaming in this house. But how is that even possible? Ell checks every room and locks everything. He sits on the sofa and wakes up the next morning.

Deputy gives a friendly visit to Ellison and asks if his wife knows about the matter, he says no. Ell doesn’t believe in supernatural stuff so he can’t understand what it is. He asks the deputy if Stevensons have any bad record or any weirdest. But surprisingly that deputy can’t find any solution other than these inhuman explanations. Deputy doubts as if he is imagining things because he is putting himself under so much pressure. Living in a crime place and writing about it is supposed to have a stressful impact on him because it will do terrible harm to your head. After that when Ellison scolds Ashley for painting outside her room, Ashley tells in front of her mom that Stephenie made her do it since that was her brother’s room.

Tracy finds out the truth and gets so angry because she wants a safe life where her children won’t have night terrors, neighbors won’t ignore them, she will have groceries without strange looks. Ell says he does all the things a father can do but he also needs to follow his heart. He is doing it just for his book but Tracy wants to make him understand that he can’t put everyone’s life at risk for his goddamn book.

That night someone puts a torch on his face and wakes him up. He sees the reels and camera is not there and the stair ladder is down. He doesn’t understand what is going on, and climbs upstairs and can’t believe what he is witnessing. There are some children sitting circular and watching a reel of that ghostly figure coming forward and suddenly he jumpscares him. At that moment he decides to leave the town and tells Tracy to pack up. They get ready and immediately leave the town.

After moving into their old house, Ell feels a little safe but can’t get himself rid of the terror he was getting and the deputy is constantly calling him. He is constantly ignoring the call but he keeps calling. In the meantime, Professor Jonas calls him and informs that the obscure deity can cause harm to those if anyone is exposed to its image. Ell gets nervous and asks if it would work after he deletes the photos or burns it. Professor asks what exactly he is writing about because it’s not safe to write about this devilish deity.

Professor cut the call and goes upstairs to keep old things and find another box of reels and this time its extended cut. He gets so angry and nervous at the same time. But as it has come in front of him so he needs to see it and needs to understand what is going on. He comes to his office and the deputy calls him again and this time he picks up and gets informed that each family that was murdered lived in the places where one of the previous murders took place. Since Ell has moved here, he actually is the killer’s target now. Ell plays the video reels making no delay and those films give him the answers to what he was looking for all the past few days.

Do you want to know who the murderers were?

The answer is obvious ‘The missing children.’

Yes, you heard it right. Those possessed children who were apparently missing were actually the killers. They murdered all of their family members in those brutal ways you will be scared even thinking. Ell suddenly feels sick and this time he is really feeling sick. He checks the coffee mug and takes the note beside it written

Good night, Daddy.

He sees her own daughter standing right beside him mixing poison in the coffee. We see Ashley has killed them with an axe after getting them tied up. In the end that devil takes her to a reel which proves it will pass to another life whoever is gonna see those reels again.

Who is this deity? Why does he make children kill?

This pagan deity is something which wants children. He needs child sacrifice to be done. Those families were not killed if they hadn’t moved to another place and let their child be eaten. They moved to another place to save them and to get them punished, he made those children kill their family members in such despicable ways.

There are bad entities whom we can’t deal with without superpower. Do you know what your power is? It is your belief for God, the one and only who can save you.