Too much of everything

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I was one of the investors behind this movie and I am proud of how it turned out. 5 stars. This movie has all the twists and turns that keep the movie goer on the edge of their seat. The set up for the movie is as good as it gets. As a reviewer said. "I am about to recommend a torture porn movie. I am like a lot of fans, I am so sick of gore and torture that is meaningless. And a big percentage of low budget movies use this in the place of a script and character development. As a horror fan, you just get sick of being cheapened by companies and films that just give you nonstop killing that you don't know who is being killed or why you should care. Sutures, is torture porn. But, it builds the characters, and tells a great story and even shares a lengthy back-story into the victims and the victimizers. You understand the motives of capturing people and selling their organs or using them to save a patient. The movie had a few scenes that I felt were ingenious, in terms of torture. The closer this movie got to the end, the more it started to lose steam. The first hour, I felt were good, not the best or worst but good. The last twenty minutes, is where the movie started to try to hurry to the finish line. Try to get everything in before the credits. I felt if the movie was 10-15 mins longer and slowed down a bit, it would have been so much more effective. This is from Tammi Sutton, who produced Dead and Rotting, what a fun movie that was. Its not boring, nor does it ever drag. It just needed more time. But, I liked it and can say I would watch it again."

STITCHES is another boring rip-off of the whole HOSTEL/SAW shebang and another unwelcome addition to the 'torture porn' category of film-making. This one sees a typically clichéd group of attractive young things end up in the hands of some decidedly nefarious business people working in the illegal organ donation industry.The entire film is merely an excuse for extended and gratuitous scenes of unpleasant torture and bloodshed. Subsequently, the whole of the soundtrack is either full of ominous music or people screaming at the tops of their lungs. It's quickly wearying, and I can imagine that few people would get a kick out of such a spectacle. I found the attempts at cod psychology to be rather laughable, while the interesting cast members are limited to just two: old-timer Andrew Prine (AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION) as the villain, and B-movie stalwart Jason London as a cop.

I watched this one late night because I am a fan of non-mainstream horror movies. But this movie was continually confusing. From the dynamics between these so-called "friends" to the way the police inspector and the villain were portrayed constantly made me pause the movie to try to figure out what I was supposed to be understanding at the moment. There was not enough time given to the villain for the audience to actually begin to view him as a villain. And there is a twist ending that does not fit with the progression of the movie. If you have nothing else to do and time to waste then I'd say, go ahead and try it out. Maybe magically someone out there can explain to all the rest of us.

*******spoilers, lots of 'em************ I always want to root for indie films, but this is just bad, I mean insultingly bad. Not the kind of bad that's so bad it's good, but the kind of bad that makes you wonder how the crew, especially the writers and director, are still working. The script is horrible. The story doesn't make sense, probably because it was likely never revised or shown to anyone who understands how to write for the screen.The premise is interesting. The story, however, is all over the place and badly imbalanced, especially the whole subplot with Alexander Tatum. Tatum is a mopey guy with daddy issues who is not at all scary. He dresses like an extra in The Crow, and spends most of the movie lurking and feeling sorry for himself. He then disappears for half the film, and at the end, we're told (literally, by several characters) that Tatum is Scary Guy Numero Uno. No mention by anyone about the psycho doctor who runs the organ-harvesting operation, just Tatum. Nevermind that Tatum has been mostly absent for much of the middle of the film, and that the doctor takes center stage for a long time. The way the other characters talk about Tatum, it's clear we're supposed to think he's the stuff of legends. It would be easier to believe he's the stuff of legends if the story actually centered around him or didn't abandon him completely for half the film. But just having other characters tell us he is? And mostly within the last five minutes, as if this is an afterthought? Not convincing.The acting is okay during the few moments when it's actually being consistent, but most of the time, it's atrocious. And it's not just confined to one character-- it's like the actors were left to their own devices with no direction, and none of them had any idea what the tone of the movie was. But it's hard to blame the actors entirely when it's the director's job to well, direct them. Though there are a few performances that stand out as really really painful to watch, I won't name names. If you sit through this movie, you'll know exactly who I'm talking about. Ultimately, it's the director who failed to at least let the actors know what her vision for the film was. But with a script so muddled, she probably didn't know either.And back to the writing again... A major fail in the script is the constant exposition. When the characters constantly have to explain major plot points to each other but the audience doesn't see it for themselves, a screenplay generally stinks. This is telling us what you should be showing us on screen, and that's basic filmmaking 101. Anyway, this script needed a major overhaul before it ever was allowed to go in front of the camera. Sutures starts out like a thriller, but quickly descends into a bad combination of a daytime soap and a badly-done and obvious ripoff of Hostel. The twists at the end, and the end itself, are all so tacked-on and badly thought out, they defy explanation. Just because a film is destined from the beginning to go straight to DVD, does it *have* to be bad? As I'm writing this, I wonder why I sat through the whole thing, but I guess it was just one of those movies where by the time you accept how rotten it is, you have already watched enough that you want there to be some kind of a payoff. That payoff never comes in this film, and I should have known better and turned it off before wasting all that time I'll never get back. I give it three stars and I'm being generous. The locations were pretty good and there are a scant few actors who actually gave it their best. But overall? Eeeegh...