PINS AND NEEDLES Review: Simple Horror Thriller Shies Away From Horror in Favor of Modest Thrills

Biology students Max and Harold are heading back to campus after spending time on a remotely stationed class project. When they become stranded on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere, they fall prey to the whims of a diabolical, professional couple looking to give their current startup a big, healthy boost. With her insulin supply dwindling, Max is trapped in their massive home and forced into a deadly game of cat and mouse to save her life.

 

James Villeneuve, writer of the recently appreciated horror comedy Vicious Fun, has made their feature film debut with the indie horror thriller, Pins and Needles, a symptom of high blood sugar in diabetics can be a tingling sensation in their limbs. Also, to be on pins and needles is to be anxious or nervous because you are waiting to see what happens next in a tense scenario. 

 

For Max, it is the physical sensation she must be feeling as they are trapped in the home of a pair of diabolical captors while her insulin supply dwindles. For the viewer, the filmmaker hopes that they have us on the edge of our seats as Max attempts to elude capture and escape.

 

Well... as the great bard Jon Bon Jovi once said, “Oooh, we’re halfway there…”

 

If this luxury house exists somewhere in rural Canada, it was a heck of a find by the project’s location manager, Jeff Chadwick. How do you say you make a lot of money without saying you have a lot of money? Build a house like this out in the country. There have been many worse places past horror victims have been stranded, which we recognize is the point. What kind of psychos could live in a place this boujee? 

 

Still, the use of the space was a little maddening. All that square footage, and there is only one door for Max to escape from? Whether by necessity (You find this amazing property out in the middle of nowhere, but the homeowner only lets you use the foyer) or design, Max only seemed interested in going out the front door. This didn’t make sense, nor did the story become any more tense; it just made Max look dense. 

 

Villeneuve seems to have a knack for creating interesting villains. We thought they did very well with that bevy of criminals in Vicious Fun, and the pair of captors, played by Kate Corbett and Ryan McDonald, are having fun with their roles in this movie. They are not menacing, but diabolical, which, when you think of it, is more evil than evil. Anyone other than Max and her captors is immediately ‘in the way’ and fodder for the psychopaths. Perhaps done away with too quickly, we understand it is meant to escalate the situation quickly and set the stakes, pitting Max against this couple. But do we ever feel that Max is under any significant threat? She remains out of sight throughout most of the film, neither of the couple knows that she is in their home (foyer and basement) until her Supplies Muthertucker! moment in the final act. That seems poorly planned out. 

 

Villeneuve does shy away from most of the gore, as well, which cannot help but weigh in on how much you will enjoy this little horror thriller. You may want to see these callous killers suffer more for their evil deeds. If you had any connection to the other passengers in that car before it got stranded on the remote road, this would matter more—those sacred lambs led to the slaughter. Unfortunately, there is not much to see here, making you wish the couple gets their comeuppance with some flair. There is more 'aftermath' than 'in the moment'. So much is left to the mind’s eye, that we question if viewers will feel rewarded. Still, though, the speedbump moment at the end of the film is quite good.  

 

It is not uncommon for some first-time directors to make their first feature films their calling cards, their ‘this is everything I can do in film’ film, to impress possible future investors in their film career. They present a kitchen sink of ideas, plot devices, tropes, etc, etc, etc, until it becomes so much that it is not the benefit they think it is. Villeneuve has done the opposite, starting small and streamlined.

 

Whether by design or by necessity (read Budget), this is what they have done with their debut, but it runs the risk of not being enough. Truthfully, for the entire runtime, very little happens. There is a dream/hallucination sequence early on, where Max hatches her plan, which is particularly good and shows promise for things out of the ordinary from the writer/director. But nearing the end of the story, one cannot help but wonder, is that it? 

 

You know what Pins and Needles is? It is a good example of what we call a “Goldilocks” horror thriller; the movie is neither too hot nor too cold. It is just right. Simply made, easily digestible, and not too gory as to make you feel ill. It does not overstep its boundaries. It is too bad that except for the dream sequence, nothing particularly stands out creatively, either.

 

A safe first go at making a feature film.