Monday, October 23, 2017

NETFLIX AND KILL: STITCHES (2012) *** ½


When we first see Stitches, the foul-mouthed clown, he’s banging a babe in his trailer.  Once he arrives at a kid’s birthday party, he proves that he’s capable of being a decent clown that can pull off a few OK magic tricks.  Unfortunately, the kids are hellions and heckle him mercilessly.  One of them ties Stitches’ shoelaces together which causes him to fall face first on a butcher knife, bringing the party to an abrupt halt.  Since we all know that “a clown that doesn’t finish a party can never rest in peace”, when the same group of now teenage kids come together to celebrate another birthday six years later, Stitches rises from the grave to get his revenge. 

From the outset, it looks like the film is going to be a variation on Bobcat Goldtwait’s Shakes the Clown.  It quickly becomes a hilarious horror comedy that features a healthy body count and gallons of splatter.  Dicks, ears, arms, heads, and eyeballs are all ripped off by the homicidal clown.  The film also contains one of the best exploding head gags outside of a Scanners movie, which is reason enough to see it. 

Even though the film can’t quite sustain the balls-to-the-walls level of mayhem throughout the entire running time, it still packs in enough juicy kills to keep any gorehound satisfied.    Some of the gore sequences are predictable (like when he makes a balloon animal from a guy’s intestines or uses a dead body as a ventriloquist dummy), but they are done with more style and humor than you’d expect.  I mean how can you not love a movie in which someone’s brains are plopped out with an ice cream scoop? 

For anyone who felt let down by It, Stitches will be a refreshing pie in the face. 

AKA:  Dark Clown.

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