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Stitches
Directed by Neal Marshall Stevens
Released: 2000
Starring: Elizabeth Ince, Robert Donovan, Kaycee Shank, and Lindy Bryant
Mrs. Albright is a demon from hell, which has come to collect souls and sew them into her book of paper dolls. She shacks up in a tenant house and uses her devilish cunning and skills of temptation to lead the other tenants into striking a deal with her. These deals are, of course, in her favor and end with the person losing their soul. Can any of the tenants manage to escape the demon’s wily ways of persuasion?
Stitches plays more like an episode of “Night Gallery” or “The Twilight Zone”, than a straight to video horror movie. This quasi morality play is directed tightly by Stevens and manages to be a decent period piece (set in the 1930s) in spite of its budget. One of the film’s assets is that I just haven’t seen anything like it come out on video in a while. It’s original in that it references much older horror stories and plays out almost like literature.
The cast is competent although no one really shines or goes for an over-the-top performance. The attack of the paper dolls bit is corny due to the cheap digital effects. Any time you take a person’s grimacing face and tack it onto a paper doll, it’s just not going to look good. This is the only sequence that reminds me of anything. It’s kind of like a poor man’s
Puppet Master.
Overall, Stitches is an okay film but nothing to write home to mom about. The most interesting scenes are at the beginning of the movie. They are the visions of hell and show what the Albright Demon looks like without her Mrs. Albright skin on. I could have used more scenes like that. There is very little gore in this one and no nudity (despite a lesbian subplot). In its favor,
Stitches isn’t a carbon copy of anything that comes to mind and since it’s around 80 minutes, the film doesn’t get a chance to meander.
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