Cast: Ross Noble, Tommy Knight, Eoghan McQuinn
Director: Conor McMahon
Country: Ireland
Genre: Comedy | Horror
Official Trailer: Here
Editor’s Notes: Stitches is being released on DVD on Tuesday, April 2nd courtesy of Entertainment One. For more information on Stitches as well as additional Entertainment One releases visit eonefilms.com and follow Entertainment One on Twitter @eOnefilms.
A suitably strange cinematic debut for surrealist comic Ross Noble, the eponymous role of Stitches—a clown arisen from the grave to avenge his accidental death at the hands of an unruly children’s party—sees him pair his Geordie persona with that reliable old horror trope of coulrophobia. Directed by Conor McMahon, the film centres on that same party re-enacted some years down the line, its child attendees now beer-guzzling teens more enthused by the prospect of hash cookies than clown entertainment.
McMahon’s script, co-written with David O’Brien, confines his comedy primarily to the one-liners spouted post-mortem. Knowingly corny, these mostly earn exactly the sort of wearied reaction they anticipate, prodding fun at the nonsensical eulogic puns so typical of such slashers.
Noble is surprisingly straight-faced in his vengeful quest, playing Stitches with little of his own manic energy—save for the opening scenes, before the unfortunate accident claims his life—and wearing instead a steely grimace of deathly determination. McMahon’s script, co-written with David O’Brien, confines his comedy primarily to the one-liners spouted post-mortem. Knowingly corny, these mostly earn exactly the sort of wearied reaction they anticipate, prodding fun at the nonsensical eulogic puns so typical of such slashers. There’s ironic intent to the words, but that doesn’t make them any funnier as they’re spoken; it’s the key problem with the character, and the film at large: it’s too self aware to be at all scary, and too uninventive in its deviations from formula to be terribly funny.
McMahon reserves Stitches and his slaughter to but half the plot, keeping the rest over for his group of teens, led by birthday boy Tom. Scarred by the death he witnessed in youth, he’s a likeable presence as portrayed by Tommy Knight, his romantic aims—for all their familiarity—sufficiently engaging and entertaining to support the obligatorily innocent opening act. It’s a teen movie, in essence, for this time, Knight and his fellow young cast members enacting a prototypical high-school narrative as McMahon allows anticipation of the horror to come ferment. Doing their best with a script that knowingly consigns them to wholly unremarkable roles, these actors are only as funny as the material they’re offered; unintentional drug consumption and overwrought romantic awkwardness, the same scenes recreated for the thousandth time, can only do so much.
Giddy excess is evidently McMahon’s forté: what many flaws otherwise perforate his film are swiftly drowned in the rising tides of bloodshed, his stupendously enjoyable creativity with practical effects elevating proceedings to an erstwhile unknown level of fun.
It’s not until the resurrected Stitches arrives—much too late, over halfway through the running time—that the film kicks into gear, the overdue slaughter allowing McMahon the space to show off his influences. He chooses well, his vengeful villain channelling Freddy Krueger as he dispatches his former tormentors in manners recalling such genre classics as Scanners. The Cronenberg nod is easily earned in the sanguineous invention of the gore, which makes a delectable treat of every death, limbs detached and organs crudely excised with violent abandon. Giddy excess is evidently McMahon’s forté: what many flaws otherwise perforate his film are swiftly drowned in the rising tides of bloodshed, his stupendously enjoyable creativity with practical effects elevating proceedings to an erstwhile unknown level of fun.
A prime example of the kind of film whose most realistic audience is excluded by its content, Stitches’ humour tailors toward teenage viewers with its incessantly immature use of comically-inclined profanity and the very nature of its plot, half high-school movie as it is, yet the willing lack of restraint in its violence prevents it reaching that very target market. Only in its native Ireland, where the Irish Film Classification Office somehow saw fit to set it a 16 rating, does it really have the chance to reach those most likely to enjoy it. It’s not without its appeal for older viewers, though; much as its horror-comedy label misappropriates how skilled it is in the presentation of either, much as it may fail to make much of its ironic view of the slasher formula, Stitches is just about bloody enough to satiate the hungry gore hound.
[notification type=”star”]55/100 ~ MEDIOCRE. Much as its horror-comedy label misappropriates how skilled it is in the presentation of either, much as it may fail to make much of its ironic view of the slasher formula, Stitches is just about bloody enough to satiate the hungry gore hound.[/notification]
