Mr. Stitch

This movie had potential... an interesting premise... a not too bad first half... then, in the middle, it gets really really bad... screaming out for the MST3K treatment... where did those "funny cars" come from? And the skeleton appearing in the smoke of the car explosion... and the daisies in the foreground of the car chase scene... it almost looks as if someone malicious substituted "crank footage" for the last reel in a deliberate attempt to sabotage the movie.

But ultimately, if you are a Wil Wheaton fan, it's not THAT painful to watch. Well, ok, actually it is kind of painful, but it does have some genuinely interesting moments, and some touching scenes. Enough that you just have to feel bad for Mr. Wheaton... this COULD have been a much better film.

This is without doubt one of the worst films I have ever seen. I saw it at a friend's birthday party where someone had recommended it as being a good film.

Mr Stitch was so boring that I even found the opening credits boring! The rest of the film was no better. The first two thirds of it took place in this enormous white room without walls. The story seemed to drag on an awful lot and took forever to get to the point of the story which it didn't really appear to have much of.

The bizarre looking Frankenstein like creation continued to have memories which were left in the body parts that had come from the people who were dug up in order to build this prototype super soldier for the military. It was difficult trying to find a reason to stay awake, but the person who recommended it kept saying "a good bit was coming up soon". It never did.

I have heard that this film won a Golden Turkey award for the most boring film of all time. An award which is most deserving. The only notable parts of the movie with any entertainment value at all are the observation eyeball and the smoke cloud in the shape of a skull.

Watch it if you suffer from insomnia.

I kept it on for as long as I could, but after awhile this movie really began to bother me, so finally I turned it off. NOT one of Rutger Hauer's best films, or probably anybody involved best films by a long shot.

It's not like I was expecting a great movie. I admit, it was only the presence of Rutger Hauer and my knowlege of some bad blood on the set that made me want to watch this in the first place. The story, which is somewhat like Frankenstein, is about a young man (Wil Wheaton) who is patched together from various cadevers by an odd reclusive type (Hauer). The young man is horrifying in appearance, but brilliant in knowlege. The old man also possesses a great amount of knowledge, so he knows enough to keep his creation secluded into an odd building where everything is white. I think the white somehow represented a sign of religion, which was pointlessly made to look all bad, and like science was the key. That, along with the fact that Hauer "suddenly having to go away" (and never coming back) quite quickly played major factors in my turning it. I don't care for Wil Wheaton nearly enough to watch him by himself, and what was he supposed to DO for the rest of the movie without Hauer? I did not feel like finding out.

Note: Hauer "suddenly had to go away" because director Roger Avery asked him to leave the set...permanently. It seems that he and much of the cast were at odds with the rest of the crew. (maybe he didn't like the ridiculous view the film took on religion). Editing problems were also supposed to be a problem for this film. Those could be two reasons as to why it turned out so...oddly.

I enjoyed this one, it was a take off of the Frankenstien theme, but this time, an androginous being is assembled, and educated by a caring mentor. It was well filmed, without the violence associated with the genre. The creature asks for two books to read, the bible, and Frankenstien. The effects were modest but effective, the story was intelligent, a decidedly off the beaten track tale, that rewards the viewer who comes to it with diminished expectations. If you like Science fiction, give this one a try.

I have an uncanny sort of respect for this one. Think about it for a moment: Roger Avary just found a spot on his mantelpiece for his Academy Award for writing one of the pop culture staples of the post-modern American cinema (or who knows where), and the next thing he signs on for (who knows how it generated but I'll imagine he pitched it) is to write and direct a weird-ass science fiction movie - the first original release for the Sci-Fi Channel no less - about a "creative" doctor who stitches together a man (OR IS IT? didn't mean to mis-gender) a-new out of 80 parts from both sexes, and then the new being named Lazarus starts to have dreams/realizes the visions of who he/she/it used to be. It takes some balls to commit to that - and by that, I mean a vision that is pretty much schlock. I am sorry if you were wondering if this was legitimately good, but I'm not sure if that's the case. Oh, Wil Wheaton and to an extent Rutger Hauer are committed to these characters, and there's a decent supporting role for the always-dependable Ron Perlman. But this has certain design elements that are familiar for sci-fi buffs - like an all-acrid all-white set ala THX-1138, and a... actually, I don't know what that GIANT EYEBALL is all about, but it is absolutely, stunningly funny and bizarre - and the dialog is stuffed with either exposition or inner-ideas and 'insights' from Lazarus and the other female doctor that he suddenly takes a liking to, and there's *more* to that.

The point is, this does have a not-terrible idea to kick it all off, which is an updated, horror-tinged but not all-the-way horror Frankenstein riff (if it isn't obvious enough, at one point Lazarus reads Frankenstein the book, which.... hey, Johnny 5 did that in Short Circuit 2, RIP OFF!) It also goes for some hallucinatory details, some that are fun for enjoying the dated value of the special effects and tomandandy techno score, and details like that 'Chemical Weapons' door sign (I still can't get over that). At the same time, this is also kind of messy by nature of the fact that Hauer (RIP) eventually during the production decided he was bored or didn't like it or who knows, and kind of just leaves more or less about halfway through. He is a major part of the story though, and the movie loses something without him in it more (when he is there, he is trying... ish, if not seeming to dig his teeth in like on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer level). What makes it schlock ultimately is that Avary a) doesn't seem to have much of a budget to work with, aside from the Tom Savini make-up and (which is terrific, goes without saying), and a couple of car crashes that are certainly something else, and b) it really starts to become more rote as it goes along in its second half. I was at first really keyed in to, you know, a moment where Lazarus flings a bar-bell at the floating giant eyeball and it falls to the ground and deflates after being pierced (and yes, I just wrote that sentence), but it devolves into the same old 'the Creation Is Out of Control We Need to Stop it But OMG it's Taken Control On Its Own AAH' story that has cropped up over and over. And, frankly, some of the dialog (ok, a lot) is more laughable than it is clever.

All of this said, Mr. Stitch feels like something that doesn't get looked at or talked about anymore, which is strange considering its history, who made it and who's in it (Taylor Negron has a fun supporting turn too), and it's the kind of obscure 90's work that probably could be unearthed by someone or some company (looking at you, Shout Factory?) It has some dull spots, but is overall a solid piece of so-crap-it's-a-gas material, and certainly a cut above what Sci-Fi has put out in the years since.