Horror Film Review...

Sutures (2009): A group of friends head to remote cabin for a weekend getaway...Wait. This sounds awfully familiar and why I almost didn't watch it. But this horror flick does not follow the rules and surprised me more than once. So these three guys and three girls (all med students) take off for this house that's really a mini-castle. Why a castle? It's never really explained. Anyway, the first surprise: only about fifteen minutes of the film is spent here. One would expect the whole movie would be the killer knocking them off one by one in this bizarre castle. Nope. He does take them, though...to a creepy hospital that caters to the ultra-rich who are in the market for new body parts.

A word about the killer, Alexander Tatum: he's not your average slasher film slasher. There are serious daddy issues that I can't fully explain because it would spoil another of the surprises. I can say the guy playing him, Carlos Lauchu, gives a very good multi-dimensional performance. Allison Lange plays Sienna, the med student Tatum fixates on and the one we start rooting for when she escapes. Jason London plays the detective who interviews her in a real hospital and tries to capture Tatum. He does a decent job. Andrew Prine plays the doctor in charge of the body farm and he is excellent. The man just oozes menace. There's enough gore to please the hard core horror geeks but not so much as to turn off the casual viewer. There's a twist I didn't see coming and I don't usually miss much. If you don't figure it out beforehand, it'll floor you.

So good acting, a fresh story, and production values on par with the bigger budget films make Sutures worth a look. Almost forgot. The ending. I didn't hate it, but it did have me scratching my head a little. If anyone else watches it and can explain the significance of Jason London's reaction as that black car's driving away, I'd appreciate it.