The Charge

Fear is not created. It's sown in.

The Case

Some idiot friends decide to enjoy some rest and relaxation in a house they have all to themselves. Unfortunately, the house is located in a weird town harboring a sinister secret: the story of The Stitcher. Who is The Stitcher? The short of it is that he's a maniac slasher that terrorizes pretty girls and kills them by buttonholing them in the face. That would be the literal meaning of "buttonhole" by the way, and not a sophomoric euphemism for human sexual contact.

While The Stitcher roams around looking for victims, the friends wile away their time laughing and drinking and playing pool. Eventually they'll be targeted by the killer and one by one succumb to his malevolent Bedazzling.

If this synopsis sounds generic and derivative it's because the movie's generic and derivative. While not quite horrible or unwatchable, director Darla Enlow's spin on the slasher genre fails to differentiate itself from the slew of similarly slashstastic thrillers vying for your valuable time. Basically, it's a serviceable entry into the crowded genre, ultra low-budget and sporting that home-grown look so common to straight-to-DVD horror releases.
The acting is passable, with a cast of no-names really giving it the old college try. Some fare better than others (the protagonists are significantly less intrusive to the viewing experience than some of their other cohorts, particularly those tasked with generating comic relief), but really all you're looking for here is a group of people willing to be coated in fake blood and laying down a decent shriek or two. In that regard, everyone delivers.

Too bad the gore doesn't match up to the screams of anguish. The bloodletting is relatively tame with most of the goop showing up after the fact. When The Stitcher does get his stitching on, the scenes are shot and edited so quickly it's often hard to keep track of all the mayhem. There's a fair amount of bloodshed in the few flashback sequences, but again, nothing too hard—or too interesting for that matter.

As for the story, this too suffers the same fate as the acting and the gore effects: it gets the job done, but there's nothing you haven't seen before. The central premise of a group of friends running for their life from a crazed serial killer with a gimmick never deviates from the typical gameplan: killing, killing, killing, whining, killing, a big old batch of exposition, the reveal of the killer and his motives, more killing. The Stitcher's background is mildly interesting and there's a small plot twist at the end, but beyond that don't expect to befuddlement over the flick's complex narrative.

Overall, I just can't fire off a recommendation to horror friends. The Stitcher isn't so bad you'll loathe yourself for watching it, but you'll probably be more than a little bored.

Taking a look at the disc, VCI put together a nice presentation. The film gets a decent 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer and a 5.1 Dolby Digital surround mix. Extras include a cast and crew commentary, an earnest making-of featurette, outtakes (these low budget gag reels are beginning to irritate me for some reason), a photo gallery, a selection of hard-to-listen-to music videos and a digital comic book.

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• Amityville Collection
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