An Exercise In Nonsense

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This starts a little confused and strange. Things do become clearer by the end. Cursed by an innocent teacher who is burnt to death by seven local men for the grizzly murders of twelve kids the daughter of one returns to the area after her father goes back and disappears. Several of her friends rally around her for support. They really shouldn't have as they start dieing one by one once the whole group is stranded on the island where the teacher was killed. I liked this movie because there was not the usual blood, guts, and gore. There is gore but not really gratuitous, just in keeping with the story plot. Turns out that two of the victims, a married couple, are stilled tied to the island. They are the ones still killing. To pass on they must kill the real Seamstress which turns out to be one of the seven men who burnt the teacher. He is killed by them so they get to go. The curse is not lifted though until the daughter kills the last of the seven murderers. This ends the movie, at least for now.

Imagine you're watching one of those cooking contest shows, they give the contestant a beautiful Filet Mignon and then they proceed to make a cheeseburger with it. That's this mess of a movie.It seemed to have all the elements of making an excellent horror film yet fails so so badly. The concept while not original was still good, the setting was great- small island off the coast? spooky looking ghost. a curse of some sort, and Lance Henriksen. Instead what we get, the angry confused, unlikable daughter trying to find out what happened to her father. Oh yeah she has "vision" dreams but this isn't ever expanded upon. pretty flat characters with similar acting. a back story/ curse/ that's never truly explained. "They Changed the rules". yeah? well how? this isn't explained either. The run time is pretty short I think around 76 minutes yet it feels much longer than this. another minus, it never seems to know if it wants to be a drama/mystery, a supernatural horror, or just a slasher type movie. with more focus on the backstory and less time spent on the character which didn't really need any development and this could have been one hell of a good movie. I stress could have been....

So everyone seems to say that the story line was over "used", well aren't they all? We have to start somewhere, and that's repeating what others did while giving it our own little twists. Personally I'm not one for a lot of gore and intestines and naked girls. I get really sick and tired of seeing boobs in my suspenseful horror movies. That's not something you "have" to have in there.Those scenes make watching horror flicks with my family very awkward. Some horror movies scare the living hell out of me but this one only surprised me and kept me on the edge of my seat. I like my horror movies this way. I even like how it started with Allie looking for her father and a group of her friends coming along.(Predictable, but I like it) The only thing I found a little off at first was the two getting married. I was like "Well, that's a twist" but that's okay. Though that was an awkward place to purpose. I have to say though, I didn't expect for them to kill someone off so fast. Was a nice change of pace, and Allie having those random flashes made the scenes more suspenseful.At the end where the Seamstress touches 6 and 7's faces and causes them to have flashes was a little odd, and I couldn't exactly make out what was going on in the flashes. I was a little lost on the counting too, how many were there to begin with and I'm sure I lost track a bit.(I do get confused easily) But I can always watch it again to find out. Because ya know what they say, each time you go through a movie you'll notice more that you hadn't noticed before.And on that line I'll have to say I WILL watch this movie again. I don't watch horror flicks often because I don't like tons of blood and torture. Which is why I'll NEVER see the Hostile movies(even though the storyline is awesome). Or anymore pet cemeteries(got a soft spot for animals) because I saw the second one and that damn dog appeared beside my bed, and I wasn't asleep. Yes, I was seeing things, that's what happens when you're traumatized.But anyway- I actually liked this movie, I like it enough to say it was awesome. The whole plot was good, and there wasn't a lot of filler scenes to get the story going. I also liked how the group of friends were like your typical friend groups, keep it simple stupid. I really enjoyed this movie! I also thought it was kinda cool that I was able to say, "Watch this, if he sticks with her this whole movie he'll live." And I was right! Predictable but awesome! If you like movies the way I do, you'll definitely wanna check this one out at least once.I give it an 8/10

Common is the horror genre today where logic & plot development take a backseat for special effects. The Seamstress is one such example of a film that chose to rush the development of a truly chilling story & replace it with a whole bunch of uninspiring supernatural backwash. I refer to this film being 'half baked' on a number of levels. First of all, this film is around 72 minutes long (don't believe IMDb's 85 minute version). It is barely feature length & most likely would of been more suitable not as a film but an episode of the TV show 'Supernatural'.Not only this, but Jesse Miller's inexperience behind the camera as director is quite evident. His experience previously in the editing department shows up in this film as he seems better at cutting the film to pieces rather than effectively developing it. The premise of the film in hindsight is very simple yet due to the fact that the film is abysmal in its length the plot is consistently rushing through key points that may help the viewer unravel the mystery. I found myself as a critic needing to watch the film twice because many key points hidden in cryptic maps & slurred/low volume dialogue (especially Kevin McNulty's character in the later stages of the film) eluded me. The contextual matter in this film is important to the viewer because most of the time the dialogue is referring to the past.From what I gather the film follows a young woman by the name of Allie Platt (Kailin See) looking to work out the mystery behind her father, Donny's (David Nykl) disappearance. The establishing scenes at the beginning of the film make no effort in trying to hide his horrible fate at the hands of a sadistic killer. We follow her as she goes on a cross country quest to discover his whereabouts all the while experiencing haunting visions of her dead father. In her childhood town, Sticks Creek she meets a creepy mechanic (Kevin McNulty) who gives her the address to a reclusive man by the name of Logan (Lance Henriksen). A man who seems vague in his responses when discussing just what happened to Donny.After a heated debate Allie; who blames Logan on her father's disappearance confides in her friends. They discover the location of a remote island that her father talked about in his notes & decide to visit it. On this island is where the story begins to meet its conflict. As the teens snug around the fire talking about the tale of an innocent woman (AKA The Seamstress) brutally killed by a vigilante mob, Allie begins to wonder if the story is more than just a myth. As the hapless teens are slowly picked off & turned into grisly pieces of artwork, the mystery of Donny becomes ever so clear. Did he somehow play a role in the events that occurred on that island 20 years ago? A question that comes begging for an answer as the final act draws to its climax.The 'campy' side to this film is somewhat the greatest redeeming factor to it. Not only does it cater for your horror/gore fanatics who take delight in watching teens get sliced open but it also has a solid ensemble of actors such as Kailin See & Lance Henriksen, who alone add to the tension as well as general atmospherics of the piece. In my opinion that whole 'campy' feel overrides my general dislike for this film which could of been in a whole new ball park if for 10 minutes the viewer had time to understand the fundamental concepts of everything. This in my opinion is a film not worthy of a cinematic release & will probably pass you a thousand times on your way down the horror isle when it is eventually released on DVD.1.5/5