Writing the Monstrous: Scott Derrickson's Sinister as Contemporary Frankenstein Narrative

This paper examines the thematic relationship between Mary Shelleys Frankenstein
(1818) and Scott Derricksons horror film Sinister (2012). Derricksons conception of terror
operates in a Frankensteinian lineage by depicting an ambitious intellectual who becomes
terrorized by his creation. But where the aspirations of Shelleys Victor lead him to science,
Derrickson transposes Victor into the contemporary author Ellison, a true crime writer who
moves his family into the former home of the victims of a brutal murder in order to tell their tale
in his next bestseller. Ellisons hopes are dashed when his attempt to bring the victims story to
life instead makes him the target of the supernatural force that kills them. This force turns his
daughter against him and the rest of his family, leading Ellison to be felled by two of his
creations: his daughter and his writing.
Ellisons demise at the hands of his authorial and paternal offspring demonstrates the
present-day relevance of Shelleys dire portrait of the defeat of rationalisms inventions by the
irrational. If Shelley suggests the monstrous consequences of attempting to rationalize nature
through science, Derrickson illustrates the morbid manifestations of efforts to capture life in
prose. Whereas the horrific offspring of Victors scientific ambitions once played on Victorian
readers fears of the boundaries of Enlightenment knowledge discovery, the murderous fruits of
Ellisons journalistic ambitions terrify contemporary audiences by depicting the limits of
writings ability to represent the modern world. These limits become all the more striking due to
Ellisons attempt to bring justice to victims with words, and his ultimate failure to do so. I argue
that Sinisters use of the themes of Frankenstein to address the terror of writing in the twenty-
first century shows the applicability of Shelleys novel to the fears of monstrosity haunting
contemporary artists and intellectuals.