The fear factor Scary business: Ethan Hawke is a writer on the trail of a serial murderer in Sinister. Reviewer rating: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars It's only a movie, it's only a movie, it's only a movie. If you have to keep telling yourself it's only a movie, it's probably a really scary movie. I watch Ethan Hawke padding along the dark corridor of a house, baseball bat in his hands, and imagine the camera trailing behind him, the continuity person off to the left, the electrician sitting outside. When I'm reaching for those things, I know the film is scaring me witless, but I'm not sure how. That's the beauty of horror. It bypasses the logical part of your brain and heads straight for the deep, primitive part, where the reptilian brainstem and the amygdala get to work. It's hormonal, which might explain why teenagers are so interested. At the same time, it requires a memory. The more times I see Ethan Hawke walk that hallway, the scarier each scene becomes. The fear accumulates. Sinister was put together by someone with a deep understanding of these things. Scott Derrickson, who directed The Exorcism of Emily Rose and The Day the Earth Stood Still, brings a strong sense of belief to horror. He's one of the few directors in the genre who admits to being Christian. He says it's an advantage: he really does believe in good and evil. The Exorcism of Emily Rose allowed him to pay homage to his favourite movie, The Exorcist. Sinister owes more to recent Japanese horror, which has had a major international impact. His co-writer C. Robert Cargill got the idea in a dream after watching Ring, a celebrated 1998 Japanese film. Spirits inhabit things, not just people or animals, in Japanese horror. A killer demon came from a videotape in Ring; everyone who watched it died. That's a trope of modern horror - you are at the mercy of what you watch. Those who want to curb screen violence have been saying that for decades. Horror filmmakers, one of their main targets, unwittingly assist that argument when they make films in which pieces of old film are dangerous. Guns don't kill people, films do. A lot of horror has used found footage since The Blair Witch Project. It works because we have all seen real atrocities on film that we would rather forget. We can't unwatch something. Sinister begins with a macabre piece of old footage, in which four members of a family are lynched on the same tree. At the beginning, they are standing on the ground. The four ropes have been attached to a heavy branch on the other side of the trunk. When that branch breaks, they are hoisted into the air. It's a horrible thing to watch, but it serves its purpose, disrupting our senses. If anything will stop teenagers texting, this will. Wot just happened. Hawke plays a writer of true-crime books, Ellison Oswalt. He and his family move into a house in rural Pennsylvania so he can write a new book, but they're not welcome. The police chief (Fred Dalton Thompson) tells him his books hurt people and he gets his facts wrong; he should go back where he came from. Ellison reassures his wife, Tracy (Juliet Rylance), that there is nothing to fear. His book will put him back on the bestseller lists. He doesn't tell her that the house they bought was the scene of a crime. When we see the tree in the backyard, we know which crime. The house is low and wide, a single-storey modern brick home with large windows and rooms. The interior is painted in muted grays and blues, a sombre effect accentuated by low lighting. The two children grumble. Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario), who's about 11, and Ashley (Clare Foley), who's maybe six, are sick of being uprooted. Clearly, dad makes a habit of putting his work ahead of everything else. That's our theme: personal ambition brings downfall. Curiosity kills more than cats. Ellison finds a box of old films in the attic, with a projector. The first one he watches is the hanging film; the second shows another hideous murder of a different family. Ellison calls the police, but hangs up when he realises the potential of this material. Much of the film takes place in the middle of the night, when he is awakened by noise. That's horror code for "this could all be delirium." Derrickson resists easy techniques, such as shock cuts. He builds the fear by repetition, restatement and clever use of the architecture of the house - the doorways and large black spaces behind characters become sinister. The atmosphere is increasingly creepy for the first half, before things turn predictable. Resorting to the supernatural is dangerous in horror; it can rupture that sense of belief. If you don't believe in ancient demons from Mesopotamia or Iceland, the spell breaks. It becomes easier to sit in one's seat and face what's left of the fear. It really is only a movie after that. Twitter: @ptbyrnes Directed by Scott Derrickson Rated MA, 110 minutes