Stitches (2001)

Reviewed on Sep 05, 2001 under Horror |

Directed by Neal Stevens
Written by Benjamin Carr
Starring
- Elizabeth Ince
- Robert Donavan
- Debra Mayer
- Linda Bryant
- Maggie Rose Fleck
Produced by J.R. Bookwalter and Chuck Williams
Executive produced by Charles Band

Much on the B-movie review circuit has been made of the seen-with-the-eye-of-faith Full Moon renaissance — a glimmer of hope seen as the company bounces back from the absolute bottom. Stitches is one of the recent movies of said renaissance, and like some of the others ( HorrorVision, The Vault) it manages to think at least a little bit outside the box that has characterized the plotting of so many post-Paramount Full Moon flicks.

In this case, the biggest surprise is that we’re not dealing with a cast composed exclusively of teens or twentysomethings. In fact, the first person we meet is a kindly looking old lady, Mrs. Albright (Elizabeth Ince). Well, that’s not quite accurate — the first person we meet is a hideous demon at a sewing machine, who then puts on a recently sewn skin and becomes said sweet little old lady. Just so we know, going in: Mrs. Albright is EE-vil.

“They’ll be sorry they gave the nanny job to that Doubtfire woman…”

The rest of the cast is composed of the tenants at a 1920s rooming house, where Mrs. Albright takes up residence in the middle of a conversation on the reality of God and Satan. (Yes, we get it; you can stop trying so hard now.) There’s the greedy landlady Mrs. Grove (Linda Bryant), who is habitually brusque with her niece/maid, the learning impaired Kathryn (Maggie Rose Fleck). There’s also Mr. and Mrs. Delany (Alex Peabody and Debra Mayer), a young married couple who kind of take that whole “patriarchal dominance” thing to extremes; Miss Lester (Kaycee Shank), a reserved young blonde; and Will Reynolds (Marc Newburger), a young agnostic who enjoys debating theology with Sam Gray (Robert Donavan) a dashing fiftyish fellow.

There’s the roll call of victims; time for Mrs. Albright to go to work. As is standard with demons, her task is to gain the souls of her prey by offering them whatever they most desire. What is a little non-standard here is that, as she collects souls, she sews them (on her antique machine) into little paper dolls that she keeps in her scrapbook. (That’s so Full Moon –can’t just have a demon, gotta have a demon with a gimmick.)

“I swear, I will never go on another blind date…”

Her first one’s almost too easy — it’s young Mr. Reynolds, who foolishly bargains to her anything she wants if she can simply prove to him that God and demons exist. All it takes is a quick disrobing from her false skin, showing her true form, and Reynolds has gotten his enlightenment — and finds himself stitched into a paper doll.

The rest of the tenants are a little more complex, so Mrs. Albright sets up complex situations to get Mr. Delany shot, have Miss Lester reveal her repressed lesbianism (in hindsight, her name was a big clue), allow Mrs. Delany to try to win her husband’s absent love, offer Kathryn the smarts to read, and tempt Mrs. Grove with a hefty inheritance. Notably, we’re not dealing entirely with a bunch of slimeballs here who all were pretty much guaranteed a place in hell anyway; Kathryn, Miss Lester, and Mrs. Delany, especially, are merely placed in situations in which their not-terribly-condemnable desires are played upon until they unwittingly sign their souls away.

Helluva knitting needle, Grandma.

And by the way, Mrs. Albright’s not one of those sticklers for the contract signed in blood. No sir! She’s willing to take any vague assent as a binding agreement, even if she’s masquerading in some other character’s skin. (Somehow I think any such verbal agreement would be thrown out of court, given that her victims thought they were actually contracting with someone else. Of course, once the contractees are all sewn up and in her book, it’s not like they can file a complaint in civil court or anything.) I’m guessing that before she became a full-fledged demon, Mrs. Albright learned her trade as a long-distance telemarketer.

Oh, you may wonder why Sam Gray is absent from the list above. That’s because he’s our designated hero, the one who starts wondering why all the other tenants start going missing one by one before breakfast. (Me, I’d probably just scoop up the extra McMuffins for myself and not even give it a second thought. That’s why I’m not a very good hero.)

I was surprised to notice that Benjamin Carr wrote this script, as Mr. Carr as been the number one script cranker-outer at Full Moon for years, and most of them ain’t all that good. In this case, surprisingly, civil and meaningful dialogue replaces the pointless bickering which stands in for “witty” banter in most Full Moon and other low-budget horror flicks. And thankfully, when Mrs. Albright makes a comment about the devil’s great power, it wasn’t the expected “the ability to convince people he doesn’t exist” quote that I’ve heard far too much of. (In case you’re wondering, it’s the ability to persuade people to do the things they already want to do — which the movie then proceeds to demonstrate.)

Don’t get yer hopes up, horndog.

A good script, though, or even a pretty good one, can’t stand up on its own. And here’s where Stitches fell flat for me: the acting. Performances ranged from mostly adequate (Elizabeth Ince and Robert Donavan) to dully stilted (I’ll not name names), which the scales definitely tipped toward the latter. In most Full Moon movies, a barely-competent level of script-reading ability may be all that’s required, but this script takes the time to present nuanced character scenes; inadequacies of craft only show up that more obviously. In the case of a single bad performance, I’ll usually blame the individual actor; but when leaden delivery and lackluster drama is the rule rather than the exception, I’ll start looking to the director. And what a surprise; this is Neal Stevens’ first outing in the director’s chair. A pity this script didn’t get better support on the set.

The other big ol’ in-your-face flaw is that whole central gimmick, the paper dolls. It’s such a counterintuitive theme, it detracts from the real meat of the story, which is the inadvertant bargaining of souls. It does lead to a few clever details (I especially enjoyed Mrs. Albright’s “familiar” — an animated ball of crumpled paper, with a distorted face within), but on the whole it’s distracting. And when Mrs. Albright calls on her paper doll minions (with digitally-imposed faces of her victims) to assist her in the climax, well, it just doesn’t impress. What’s less impressive than an actor “fighting” a PuppetMaster doll stitched to his clothes? An actor “fighting” a cardstock paperdoll masking-taped to his clothes.

**Full Moon’s next ambitious project: A period version of Macbeth.**

Again, it is a step in the right direction. In fact, this is probably the one movie of the recent Full Moon crop which could support a sequel; now that the initial premise has been established, another set of creative soul-bargaining, in a different setting and locale, might be just what the doctor ordered.

I’ll keep you posted.