Ethan Hawke has spent the better part of his career avoiding genre projects: although his first film was Explorers and he helped launch writer-director Andrew Niccol’s career when he starred in Gattaca, he’s otherwise done a lot of great work in comedies, dramas and independent films.

But the actor says he decided to appear in Scott Derrickson’s Sinister because of a longstanding relationship with its producer, Jason Blum, whose work in the Paranormal Activity franchise made him the perfect collaborator.

“If I really ever wanted to make a horror movie, this is the moment to do it,” Hawke tells Celebuzz. “[Jason] and I were partners in running a theatre company when we were about 20 years old… It was the right script with a great director with a producer I respect. It started to feel right.”

What challenges did Hawke face trying to make his true-crime novelist character charming?

In the film, Hawke plays a successful if self-important writer of books about real-life crimes. He says that a character like that is more interesting specifically because he might not do “the right thing.”

“You always know what a good person is going to do,” he observes. “They’re going to do the right thing. And if they have some moral complexity, you’re never sure what they’re going to do because their motivations are askew. And as an actor that makes it more fun to get inside a character like that.”

Sinister opens in theaters nationwide on Oct. 12. Watch the film’s trailer below.

After eviscerating its competition with an opening-weekend haul of $49.5 million, Taken 2 continues to pummel all comers in its second weekend with another $21.8 million in receipts.

Meanwhile, Ben Affleck’s third outing as a director, Argo, squeaked into the No. 2 spot with an impressive $19.5 million.

Hotel Transylvania, on the other hand, dropped to No. 4 with a box office take of $17.2 million, bringing its cumulative earnings to more than $102 million in just three weeks.

What scary surprise slid into Number Three?

Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s Sinister opened at No. 3 with just more than $18 million, which recouped its reportedly $3 million price tag and then some.

No. 5 was also a new release: Kevin James’ Here Comes the Boom. The comedic MMA movie took in $11.8 million along with its wealth of negative reviews.

Of the other two high-profile films opening last weekend, Seven Psychopaths and Atlas Shrugged: Part II, only the former penetrated the Top 10, slipping past Perks of Being a Wallflower to take home $4.1 million in the No. 9 spot.

Atlas Shrugged, on the other hand, landed at No. 11, which is actually mildly impressive given the fact that it opened only on a few more than 1,000 screens, which was less than half of the number of screens of almost all of its competition.

Watch the Taken 2 trailer below.

Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers, move over: Mr. Boogie – also known as Bagul — has just joined the ranks of great modern movie monsters.

In the new film Sinister, Ethan Hawke‘s true-crime novelist Ellison Oswalt finds himself being terrorized by Bagul, the otherworldly spirit, after he moves into a house marred by murder.

Celebuzz readers can interact with him directly via a new motion image, available exclusively on this site thanks to Summit Entertainment.

Meanwhile, we’ve also assembled a creepy gallery of images from the forthcoming film, which arrives in theaters Oct. 12.

What will you do when Bagul looks at you?

Sinister opens in theaters nationwide this Friday. Scroll your mouse over the image below to get a glimpse of Bagul – and to let him get one of you, too.