What I'm Watching: Stitches

Up on the chopping block today is the...rather interesting movie, Stitches.

What we have here is a mix of horror and comedy, much in the same vein as Shaun of the Dead.  It has that dry British wit, and some great effects, and some very off the wall humour.

The movie opens up with our titular clown, Sitches, banging a girl shouting, "Fuck me, clown!"

Much like Father's Day, just that mere description kinda gives you an idea of what you're in for here.

This is the story of Stitches, a clown who is accidentally killed by the mischief-making of a group of eight year olds at Tommy's birthday party.

Eight years later, when Tommy has finally put to rest the demons of having seen a clown die with a knife stabbed into his face at his last party, he agrees to throw another birthday party when he turns 16.

This event calls forth the corpse of Stitches to enact his entirely appropriate revenges upon each of the kids that fucked up his day, in ways that were surely handed down from the ironic punishments division of Hell.

What that transpires is about 45 minutes of the clown stalking through the party, killing everyone in his way, and basically having a laugh of it all.

LOVED this movie, plain and simple.  It never takes itself seriously, obviously, but it still is insanely bloody and brutal.  Even so, that violence remains purely in the realm of cartoon violence.  One of the kids gets killed by a bike pump being shoved into the back of his head, and getting his noggin inflated until it explodes.

Ross Noble plays the clown, and oh my god, is he hilarious.  Stitches comes from a long line of surly clowns who hate their job, but have nothing better to do.  And his demeanor does not improve upon his rise from the grave.  In fact, he seems more perturbed that he's been woken, than being killed in the first place.  He is grumpy, not very nice, and just wants to get this over with.  I love this take on a clown, and having a bad guy only going through the motions so he can be done with this shit, is a fun twist, and seems like something that would only appear in a British movie.

The movie is very satisfying, in so many ways.  Many of the kids grew up to be little shits, thanks to the traumas of watching a clown bite it, so you are so pleased to watch them get what's coming to them.  Plus, the bad guy actually gets taken out in the movie, which is ALWAYS a plus, and there's even room left for a sequel, if they want to do one.  Which I would welcome.  They even manage to fit in a little bit of coming of age story tropes for Tommy, as he recovers from his birthday clown death, and struggling to overcome.

It hits all the right notes of horror and humour that you want this movie to have.  It hits a few tasteless notes, but even with those, this is such a fun movie, with some great writing.

Definitely check this out!