A review of "Stitches"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Stitches”

By: Brian Cotnoir

If you’ve read my reviews of “100 Tears” and “Scary or Die”, then you already know how much the “Killer Clown” Motif in horror films.  I’m sorry, but clowns just aren’t that scary.  I know so many people are afraid of movie clowns, like Pennywise the Clown from “Stephen King’s: IT”, and the killer clowns from “Killer Clowns from Outer Space”, but I just don’t get the appeal to them.  To be honest, the only clown I every found remotely scary in any horror film was that creepy clown doll from the movie “Poltergeist”.  I fully expected that the film I’m reviewing today, “Stitches”, would fall into the category of terrible horror film with a stupid killer clown, but much to my surprise I was wrong.  So now, I am here to tell you why you should check out the 2012 Horror-Comedy “Stitches”.           

   “Stitches” is the story of a drunken failure party clown named “Stitches” who dies a horrendous death a young boy named Tom’s birthday party because of a prank played on him by Tom and his friends.  Six years pass, and Tom still isn’t the same since that day.  With this 17^th birthday approaching, his friends convince him to let them throw a birthday party for him, and what starts out as a party for a couple of friends turns into a huge party that all the kids in town are attending.  Stitches rises from his grave to seek bloody vengeance against the kids who killed him, and he’s going to give Tom and his friends a birthday party that they’ll never forget for the rest of their short lives.

I just going take a little off the top

 I didn’t mind this film as much because although I did not find it to be scary, I still found it to be a comedic film.  One thing this film did that I actually like is that in most films when they have a two actors playing the same character at different ages in their lives, it’s very hard to keep track of whose who, which is a nice little cheat-sheet that the film offers. Also, some of the scenes in the film were done in a style that is very similar to that of director Edgar Wright (known famously for his works on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).  So you get the sense that the film is meant to be taken more as a comedy rather than a horror film.  All the deaths are over-the-top hilarious like a girl getting her eye-ball gouged out with a prop umbrella to a boy having his intestines turned into a balloon animal.  I know a lot of people hate cheesy one-liners in films, but I am just a sucker for them.  I just enjoy them so much, and when Stitches comes back from the grave, that’s practically all of his lines, and they are so bad, so lame, that I couldn’t help but laugh, but I know that thought/idea would deter a lot of people from seeing this film.  Plus, there’s this interesting sub-plot that Stitches the Clown is a member of this ancient clown cult, and I found it to be quite interesting.

Could you please repeat that?
I couldn't here you over the sound
of me soiling my trousers! 

"Everybody Happy?"

Plus, I liked how more than one teen survived the end.  It would have been very cliché for Tom and his love interest be the only survivors, but his best friend actually makes it alive with them.  It was a nice change of pace. I can’t really think of a point in the film where I felt the need to nitpick the acting.  Most of the cast was written as genetic typical teenagers, with no one really standing out as a great performance.  Actor Ross Noble was rather enjoyable as the homicidal clown, Stitches, and I was most pleased that they gave him a motive. He’s not just an evil clown for the sake of being an evil clown, he’s evil because he was killed a party and had to wait 6 years until Tom had another birthday party before he could rise from the grave to seek his vengeance.                     

   My final consensus on my initial screening of this film is that if you are a fan of films like “Drive Thru” or “Leprechaun” then I think you will enjoy the dark comedy of “Stitches”, if you are not, then I recommend you skip this film entirely.