Stitches (2012)

It’s nearly impossible to create a good horror movie about clowns. I don’t know why, or have a solution or anything – it just seemed like the best way to open a review of Stitches.

Director: Conor McMahon

Starring: Ross Noble, Tommy Knight

IMDb

This is a “funny” “horror” “film” about a clown cult that brings dead clowns back to life to “finish their jokes” by killing everyone who wronged them in life. I’m guessing that is a common occurrence. After all, with so many clowns dying in the middle of their acts, it’s good they have a failsafe to fall back on! Also, why did I put all those words in quotation marks in that first sentence? If you want to find out, READ TO THE END OF THE REVIEW … or not, because I probably will forget about it and not answer it there either.

We start off this masterpiece of cinema with a clown having sex with his girlfriend. Apparently this is a mating ritual that ends up in tiny clown-faced eggs being formed. But since the egg was on the table already when the scene started, I guess I’m just full of shit.

The clown, whose name is Stitches, goes to a party full of British kids, who hate his act. Well, there’s your problem – the British don’t want clowns; they want dry humor full of people who talk so fast you can’t understand a goddamn word they’re saying! Please direct your hate mail to me at ... ha ha ha, no; don't bother. Only self-important jackasses send hate mail. Instead, just continue on with your life and don't let stuff you read on the Internet fill you with that much hatred.

Apparently the clown is so bad the kids actually just figure out ways to kill him – what a bunch of little psychopaths. Their parents aren’t watching or anything, either; I guess they just think 'clown' is code for 'babysitter.' It doesn't even matter when their kid ends up watching the clown get stabbed in the eye and then gets clown blood all over his face.

Just pretend it's Nickelodeon slime.

There’s a lifetime of therapy for you!

The clown dies, and so the main kid goes to the graveyard later on to see his grave. Again, so glad the parents were watching him this whole time! And that they properly lock their doors at night. Fortunately he doesn’t get killed, molested or kidnapped – he just comes across an underground cult of clowns in the graveyard talking about resurrecting clowns from the dead through making eggs with clown faces painted on them. Didn’t we do this in Sunday school around Easter time? Why is it being brought back in a horror film?

"How dare you interrupt the Insane Clown Posse rehearsal sessions?!"

We then go forward six years, because that’s not a bizarre or awkward time jump at all. Now everyone is in high school, where they all act like complete douchebags. I guess maybe this is supposed to be because of the clown thing, but I just think it’s because these kids are shitheads. They do stupid things like have daydreams in class about the clown ripping out a kid’s testicles and tying them to a balloon.

Good for you, you fit that scene into a movie. You spent money putting that scene, from your fucked up head, into the real world for people to see. What do you have to say for yourselves?!

… Oh. Nothing. Because you can’t hear me – because this is just text on a blog that I’m writing, which the makers of the film will probably not see.

I see how it is. What am I doing with my life?

So I guess they have a party at the main character’s house. The clown comes back to life because this one kid leaves his window open with the invitation on his bed while he’s starting to jerk off to a picture of a girl’s face on Facebook. The invitation then lands on the exact spot of the grave where Stitches the clown was buried – thus bringing him back to life and telling him exactly where to go.

… That’s so stupid I would have to take an entire other review to explain. Most of the review would be taken up with me just asking WHY? Over and over like that. No, what I wanna know is – WHY WAS THAT KID ABOUT TO JERK OFF TO A GIRL’S FACE?

Ohhhhhhh yeah, some girl's face in a picture!

Not even a particularly sexy face or anything, just a generic Facebook selfie. Yearbook photos are more erotic! Jesus, this is fucked.

We get the actual party scenes, and they’re pretty tiresome. Some banging on about liking girls and all sorts of boring drama. Something interesting finally happens when this bully shows up in a clown outfit and scares the shit out of the main kid, who thinks it’s Stitches, back from the grave! The main kid runs out of the house and hides in a treehouse, while the bully gloats about it with his stupid girlfriend. Uh, buddy, I think you’re the asshole in this scenario – you’re the one dressed up like a poor imitation of Pennywise the Clown and crashing a party which likely does not give two shits about your petty vendetta.

Luckily, the real zombie clown comes back and kills the bully. But not before showing off his true magic prowess and pulling a rabbit out of the kid's mouth:

Look at that poor thing, it looks traumatized!

But whatever, who gives a shit about THAT when we have so much more to talk about? I mean, personally I always would rather have boring, puked-up drama about the main wuss trying to get that one chick to talk to him more, rather than another death scene. Which is why there’s so much of that I guess. We also find out an amazing fact about clowns – being dead gives them several special abilities, like making bad puns and removing their nose and having it roll around independently to “sniff out” the scene.

I'm sure that comes in handy a lot when you're trying to sniff out which pair of pants you left your week-old Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich from the grocery store in and don't feel like digging through your laundry. Otherwise it's probably useless.

Anyway, so one of the other guys tries to get with this chick who used to be fat but now isn’t. He accidentally spills his drink all over the bully girl, who then throws a beer can at him and knocks him to the ground. The chick formerly identified as fat then comes over and flirts with him. Bully girl says this line as she’s leaving: “How perfect, a dick and a cunt together.”

Uh, HOW is that a joke? What, because she … named two things they have and two things MEANT to fit together by the laws of nature???

Oh well, it’s still funnier than the other scene going on – where the clown kills some fat kid in a closet, then spends a looooong time disemboweling him and putting his brains in a bowl to eat. So what does the clown say while eating the brains?

“Now that’s food for thought!”

Shakespearean art for sure - look at the drama on that face as he's about to eat the brains! Also, Hannibal Lector is suing you as we speak.

What? No! No, no, no. You can’t just do that! Why would he say that when there’s nobody around? What the fuck’s the point?! I’m seriously just astounded. Hannibal Lector would be so ashamed.

Oh, and I forgot to mention “Dying in Your Arms Tonight” was playing the entire scene, too – while the fat kid literally died in the clown’s arms. I’m sure that’s what Cutting Crew had in mind when they originally wrote the song; a fucking zombie clown eating brains. Fucking genius, really.

After that, the clown kills the bully girl with an umbrella and makes her head explode somehow. I could probably go on and make some jokes about that, but I’m just mystified by what happens immediately after: the clown thrusts his pelvis out, does a little jig and says, “Taken from behind!” while standing over her corpse. Frankly, after watching it, I felt like my head had been blown up with an umbrella.

That pretty much owns the movie. A fuckin’ dead clown doing a pelvic thrust after exploding a girl’s head and then making a dumb joke afterward. And again – HOW is it funny when nobody’s around to hear you make the joke? Isn’t that the whole point? To have people, oh I dunno, HEAR THE FUCKING JOKES?!

I can’t really remember what happens in the rest of this movie. I do remember something about the clown killing some kid by blowing his head up like a balloon:

But really nothing else. They end up figuring out that, to kill the clown, they have to destroy the egg with his face on it. Apparently dead clowns are sort of like mystical genies or something. After some pretty boring slapstick that can’t in any way top the “Taken from behind!” scene, the egg is crushed and the clown evaporates. The main characters go back to their boring lives, with one hell of a story to explain to the dead kids’ parents, and then we get an epilogue where we see another clown piecing the dead clown’s broken egg back together:

What a sad and pathetic life you must have to try and bring back a clown who these kids already killed twice. I mean Jesus fuckin Christ you'd have to be crazy. Literally crazy! They say the definition of insanity 

What? Why? What the fuck was so important about Stitches? Did that one dead clown really merit bringing back to life AGAIN?! Are those kids really just the scourge of all clowndom? Am I really still talking about this silly movie?

No. No I am not. I am not saying another word about Stitches, which is a movie I recommend if IT and Killer Klowns from Outer Space weren’t kitsch enough for you. Now I’m really not talking any more about it. Bye!

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