Sutures

Sutures (2009)

When 6 friends head out to an old hunting lodge they get far more then they were expecting. A mysterious man named Alexander is following them. After they arrive he grabs them one at a time and takes them to the hospital from hell. This is a place where trauma surgeons are trained in controlled conditions where unwilling “volunteers” are mutilated as test subjects. Also organs are harvested and cures are tested for fatal diseases by infecting those they kidnap. Toss in a subplot about Alexander’s own agenda regarding his sick daughter and you have a pretty decent movie.

And this really is a decent movie. The story is fairly solid and entertaining over the movie’s rather short, but effective 83 minutes. I’ve seen too many low budget movies that try and stretch the runtime to 90 plus minutes. This movie wastes no time setting the story up and getting to the good stuff. This really helps the pacing and keeps everything interesting. I also thought it was very clever the way that they use flashbacks to tell the story from the perspective of the survivor. I suppose this might give away who lives and dies right away, but really haven’t we all seen enough of these movies to predict who the final girl is anyway?

I really only have 2 complaints about the movie. First up some of the acting is rough at times. Most of the cast is doing a good job, and it was cool to see genre vet Andrew Prine in a role that he could really sink his teeth into. But some of the younger actors spend so much time shouting their lines (even before they are getting cut on!) that it gets a bit annoying. The other issue that I have with the movie is the twist ending. I’m not so much annoyed by the twist itself because it is kind of cool. But this is one of those movies that when the twist is revealed it opens up a ton of plot holes that just don’t make any sense to me. I’m not going to spoil anything by pointing them out, but if you watch the movie you will see what I mean.

Sutures walks a very fine line when it comes to the effects. This is basically a movie about a twisted teaching hospital that kidnaps people to practice on. So for the movie to work it has to be gruesome, or at least make you think that it is. You do get to see some things like a leg getting chopped off and some guts, but most of the gore is off screen and only hinted at. But these scenes are shot so well that the actor’s expressions and the sound effects lead your imagination to all sorts of horrors. Being a low budget movie like Sutures is I would rather have this then bad practical effects or CGI.

There are a couple of other things that I wanted to mention about the production values of the movie. First up the camera work is quite good. Whether we are watching a scene in broad daylight or one with the characters in the dingy basement of the hospital it all looks great. I also loved how they use the shadows and movement behind the characters in several scenes to create tension. That said they never go for the cheap jump scare, which is much appreciated from this reviewer. I also have to say that the music in Sutures is pretty well done. Too many low budget horror movies rely on a blaring metal soundtrack, but they don’t do that here. You get a more traditional score in most scenes and it helps set the tone of the movie.

I had pretty low expectations going into this one and they were all exceeded. I’m sure a lot of fans will write this one off as a late to the game “torture porn” flick, but don’t do that. Sutures is a really well made horror movie that I can see myself revisiting in the future.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer