50 Movies Where Evil Won

Plot: Struggling true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) moves into a house where a family was murdered. He discovers a box of tapes showing the murders of several families, and realizes that his family is being targeted by the demonic entity responsible. 

Sinister stands out among the studio horror films of the early 2010s. For starters, unlike a lot of horror films around that time, it's actually pretty good, and it's filled with shocking moments, including an utterly brutal ending which, ironically enough, results from what would've been a smart decision in most other horror stories. 

Ellison gets his family out of the haunted house they've moved to, but his police contact (James Ransome) later informs him how the families are being chosen. Each one moved into the house where the last murder occurred, and they were then killed once they themselves moved house. 

Just as Ellison realizes he might've doomed his family, he finds some more tapes which show the full versions of the films, revealing that in each case a child in the family was possessed to murder their own family before disappearing. At this point, viewers probably guessed what was about to happen next, but that didn't make it any less bruising. 

Ellison's young daughter Ashley (Claire Foley) drugs Ellison, his wife, and his other child, then creates a snuff film of them being murdered with an axe before she too is taken by the demon, Bughuul. Nasty.