10 Horror Movies That Brutally Punish Your Curiosities

2. Sinister

The Houses October Built
Summit Entertainment

For true crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), he caused his family's downfall after giving into the urge to watch some Super 8 home movies discovered in the attic of his new house.

From writer/director Scott Derrickson, Sinister certainly put the scares up audiences when it was released in 2012. Where the Oswalt family was concerned, those scares meant the death of three of the four of them; with the surviving family member being the murderer of the others.

Upon moving his family into the home previously owned by the now-deceased Stevenson clan, Hawke's Ellison finds a box of films labelled Pool Party '66, BBQ '79, Lawn Work '86, Sleepy Time '98 and Family Hanging Out '11.

With the main reason for moving into this house being that Ellison wants to ignite his creative spark and dive deeper into the Stevenson murders, he can't help but explore these home movies once he finds them up in the attic.

Of course, each of this films feature the slaughter of different families, with it revealed how one child in each family is behind these mass murders. And for the Oswalts, Ellison's prying puts them in line to become the next victims of a plan orchestrated by the ghastly Bughuul - with Sinister ending with young Ashley Ellison killing her family with an axe.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.