STITCHES

For Tom's birthday, his mom hired a particular clown for a small show. The show quickly degenerates, and the children start playing little pranks on the clown until they accidentally kill him. Stitches, the clown who comes back to life, will thus have his personal revenge to carry out against those children, who are now in high school, who deprived him of the gift of life and who, just on the day of the clown's awakening, are having a party at Tom's house. A film about a killer clown will surely awaken the fears of many, as IT, from 1990, made many clowns lose their jobs by traumatizing the childhood of many children. "Stitches" is aware of all this and decides from the beginning to present itself as a film quite different from a serious one where the clown in question is a drunk womanizer of four coins who, once dead due to an accident caused by some kids, comes back to life to pursue and kill them in the most fantastic ways. "Stitches", although it proposes a killer clown in turn, turns out to be a classic "slasher movie" in every aspect, from the characters, to the settings and the motivations of the killings of the lone killer who seeks revenge. Why then watch this movie? Because you have a lot of fun! The clown here is a grotesque and over-the-top figure, more interesting and intriguing than the children themselves, while the poor victims, although they follow the classic stereotypes, have something extra that makes us appreciate them (perhaps the protagonist and his future girlfriend are the least interesting and most banal). As for the killings, we are faced with scenes that are not only very imaginative and fun but that turn without any censorship into the most "extreme" splatter, although treated in a playful and ironic manner so as never to be disturbing. Funny and original are some ideas, like the clowns' eggs or the congregation of the same with characters destined in the common imagination to be considered "friends" of children who will turn out to be men anything but reliable or morally "acceptable". Good also the technical level with a very saturated photography and that helps well to create the atmosphere of the film as well as excellent are the special effects, mostly made in a handmade way with however some style drops when opting for computer graphics. A somewhat painful note for the clown protagonist, from his resurrection onwards, because, compared to the first ten minutes where he holds the stage in a captivating manner, he will then be much less characterized and much more "classic" despite his appearance and his deadly games. The cast is all composed of young teenage actors (with the exception of the famous British comedian Ross Noble in the role of the clown) and we thus find the boy protagonist Tommy Knight ("The Impressions") or Gemma Leah-Leveroux ("I Tudor") in the role of the girl admired and loved by Tom who do their duty, while the supporting figures such as the chubby boy and openly homosexual or the bully couples turn out to be more interesting. Ending with a textbook cliffhanger although avoidable. It is clear that we are in front of the usual slasher movie in which a killer during a night party of only guys starts to mow down random victims in the most atrocious ways, but I assure you that "Stitches" is also damn funny. It deserves half a pumpkin more.