Stitches

Released by: Dark Sky Films
Released on: April 2, 2013.
Director: Conor McMahon
Cast: Ross Noble, Tommy Knight, Shane Murray Corcoran, Gemma-Leah Devereux
Year: 2012
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The Movie:

Directed by Irish filmmaker Conor McMahon, who co-wrote with David O'Brien, 2012's Stitches begins with a scene where the titular scuzzy, grubby looking clown (Ross Noble) is banging a skanky looking girl from behind in his rundown trailer. He realizes then that he's late for some kid's party, and quickly crams into his beater car and drives to a fancy suburban home to perform for a young boy named Tommy and his friends. These kids are not particularly impressed with Stitches' performances and after heckling him, one of the kids ties his shoes together. When he falls backwards, he lands on a butcher's knife that's sticking out of the dishwasher behind him. After removing the knife and spurting blood everywhere, he dies. After he's buried in the cemetery Tommy can see from the telescope he keeps in his treehouse, Tommy sees a few other clowns. He goes to explore and realizes there's a strange sort of dead clown cabal operating out of one of the tombs, the leader of which tells Tommy that if a clown dies before he finishes a performance, he can never know eternal peace.

Ten years go by and Tommy (Tommy Knight) is now a teenager in high school. He's shy, reserved, and a little eccentric and not the most popular kid around, though his old friend Vinny (Shane Murray Corcoran) has stuck by him even if the girl he liked years back and still has a serious crush on, Kate (Gemma-Leah Devereux), doesn't have a whole lot to do with him anymore. When Tommy's mom goes away for a business trip over his birthday weekend, he invites Vinny over to hang but Vinny's got a big mouth. Before you know it, he's invited everyone at school over to Tommy's place for a raging party - and wouldn't you know it, everyone who was at his birthday when Stitches was killed shows up. And so does Stitches. The bad clown rises from the grave to get revenge on those pesky kids. Before it's all over, brains will be scooped out, cats will be killed, eyes will be gouged, heads will be sent spinning through the air and a small penis will be severed from its owner's body and tied to a floating balloon.

Goofy and gory, Stitches is a pretty fun way to kill an hour and a half. You can more or less see where all of this is going early on so there aren't a whole lot of surprises in terms of what happens, but you've got to give the filmmakers credit for coming up with some seriously creative murder set pieces. The twisted sense of humor that runs through the movie doesn't stop with the gore, however, it's worked into some clever editing choices as well, and of course there's the occasional snappy one liner from our evil clown to provide for some amusement.

Ross Noble does a fine job as the film's only real antagonist. You think that the cabal of evil clowns is going to matter early enough in the picture but they're little more than a plot device. Noble makes up for that, however, scowling and grimacing his way through one kill after the next and occasionally actually managing to create some menace. If you find clowns creepy, as most sane people do, there are a few shots here where, comedy or not, Stitches just might get under your skin a little bit. Tommy Knight is likeable enough as the dorky 'hero' of the movie - obviously when he starts ranting about a murderous clown having come back from the dead nobody at the party believes him - of course that changes as the bodies start to mount but Knight's performance here is a good one.

There's some clumsy CGI in a few spots that might irk some viewers but by and large the effects are good throughout the movie and there's enough good old fashioned latex and red paint on display to keep most gorehounds pretty happy. There's a lot of trashy, splattery entertainment value packed into this one - it was a very pleasant surprise.

Video/Audio/Extras:

There's not much to complain about in regards to the AVC encoded 1.85.1 widescreen 1080p high definition transfer on this disc. Colors look nice and natural and black levels are strong. You might spot some mild ringing if you really look for it but otherwise, this is a solid image. Detail is impressive as is texture, you can almost feel the scuzz on Stitches' face once he comes back from the dead and check out the grime and dirt in the clown tomb. As this was shot digitally there are no issues with print damage or grain - all in all, the movie looks pretty nice.

Audio options are provided in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and in LPCM 2.0 Stereo, both tracks in English. There are no alternate language options provided though subtitles are offered in Spanish and closed captioning is available in English. The 2.0 track sounds more natural here, which was a bit of a surprise, as the 5.1 mix sounds a little thin and forced at times. Both tracks offer crisp, clear dialogue and properly balanced levels and neither has any hiss or distortion to complain about. The music sounds good in both mixes, but the channel separation and directional effects in the surround mix are just a little too iffy. The stereo track sounds great though.

The main extra feature is a commentary track with actor Ross Noble and writer-director Conor McMahon. This is a lively track with McMahon discussing his inspiration for the film and offering bits and pieces about the technology used to complete the picture while Noble talks about his character, his co-stars and his thoughts on the picture. Complimenting this is a 'making of' featurette that includes interviews with most of the principal cast and crew members in addition to some behind the scenes footage that gives us a look at a few of the more memorable moments in the movie being shot.

Rounding out the extras are a blooper reel, the trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection. Trailers for a few unrelated Dark Sky Films properties play before the main menu screens load.

The Final Word:

Stitches is a lot of fun. The humor works, the gore is splattery and gooey and the performances are decent. It might not win any awards for originality but the fact that it plays things for laughs more than it does scares means it doesn't really need to. Dark Sky Films' Blu-ray looks and sounds good and contains some decent extras too.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!