10 Moments That Ruined Amazing Movie Scenes
7. The Final Jump Scare - Sinister
To director Scott Derrickson's credit, Sinister does actually have a couple of bracingly effective jump scares, but the one at the end? Pure cynical slop.
The film's final sequence is, for the most part, absolutely chilling, as protagonist Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), his wife, and his son are killed by his possessed daughter Ashley (Clare Foley), at the urging of the pagan deity Bughuul (Nicholas King).
Ashley then paints the walls with the gore of her own murdered family, before Bughuul shows up to "claim" Ashley as one of his children.
The final shot lingers on the box containing the footage of the Oswalts' deaths - a fitting final image given the movie's subject matter.
But of course, this being a studio horror movie, it has to end with a final jump scare, as Bughuul suddenly dives back into frame accompanied by a loud tension chord, and we finally cut to black.
Bughuul is already tough to take seriously given that he looks like an especially daft Slipknot reject, but did we really need to have him break the fourth wall in the film's final second?
This reeks of a studio note, like Blumhouse told Derrickson to toss this in during post-production to give the popcorn gobblers one last scream.