Jennifer, Ellie and Madeleine could not be more different from each other. Jennifer is a professional businesswoman ready to celebrate her birthday and closing a big deal at work. Ellie is a party girl looking for a good time. And Madeleine? Well, Madeleine seems to be a bit awkward and socially inept. They are all at the same bar and presumably they go their separate ways at the end of the night. However, the next morning they wake up. Together. Someone has grabbed them and stitched together different body parts from each of the ladies. Now they must work together to find out who did this to them and get their revenge.
While all three actresses play their parts- the professional, the aprty girl and the oddball- the bulk of the 'creature' work is done by Jennifer/Tory Stopler. Even with the makeup effects work of Kourtney Kuroki you wonder if it is okay that you find this version of Frankenstein a little on the attractive side. That is okay, right? I have not tapped into any sort of latent tendencies here, have I?
Showing up in a supporting role as the love interest is James Phelps, one of the Weasley twins from the Harry Potter franchise. Though he has continued one in his career after that franchise came to a close it is still odd to see him without his brother on screen. Phelps has his share of comedic moments as well.
Tyler MacIntyre's film Patchwork is a riotous take on the Frankenstein story by way of Stuart Gordon. The writing by MacIntyre and his writing partner Chris Lee Hill (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) is strewn with humor and cartoonish violence. During one scene the girl(s) are bashing in someone's skull with a brick and his partner, in a panicky voice, asks, "Can you please stop doing that?". The pair really have put a lot of laughs into their film.
They have also written in a clever little twist in the third act when it comes time to revealing who the villain of this story is. Otherwise MacIntyre has joggled the narrative into chapters jumping back and forth from each girl's story where it begins in the bar to their current task at hand.
Patchwork is a charming horror comedy full of laughs and gory violence. It is a great fit for the final night at Toronto After Dark this Friday, even teamed up against the superior Deathgasm.
(*Potential Spoiler*) It would be interesting to know what MacIntyre and Hill intended to get across as the subtext of their horror comedy. I imagine that it would be something along the lines of a condemnation of how some women are made to feel about themselves and what they would go through to make themselves better, that their film serves as a metaphor condemning industries that target and prey on women's insecurities about themselves.