The Seamstress (2009)

This starts a little confused and strange. Things do become clearer by the end. Cursed by an innocent teacher who is burnt to death by seven local men for the grizzly murders of twelve kids the daughter of one returns to the area after her father goes back and disappears. Several of her friends rally around her for support. They really shouldn't have as they start dieing one by one once the whole group is stranded on the island where the teacher was killed. I liked this movie because there was not the usual blood, guts, and gore. There is gore but not really gratuitous, just in keeping with the story plot. Turns out that two of the victims, a married couple, are stilled tied to the island. They are the ones still killing. To pass on they must kill the real Seamstress which turns out to be one of the seven men who burnt the teacher. He is killed by them so they get to go. The curse is not lifted though until the daughter kills the last of the seven murderers. This ends the movie, at least for now.

Imagine you're watching one of those cooking contest shows, they give the contestant a beautiful Filet Mignon and then they proceed to make a cheeseburger with it. That's this mess of a movie.It seemed to have all the elements of making an excellent horror film yet fails so so badly. The concept while not original was still good, the setting was great- small island off the coast? spooky looking ghost. a curse of some sort, and Lance Henriksen. Instead what we get, the angry confused, unlikable daughter trying to find out what happened to her father. Oh yeah she has "vision" dreams but this isn't ever expanded upon. pretty flat characters with similar acting. a back story/ curse/ that's never truly explained. "They Changed the rules". yeah? well how? this isn't explained either. The run time is pretty short I think around 76 minutes yet it feels much longer than this. another minus, it never seems to know if it wants to be a drama/mystery, a supernatural horror, or just a slasher type movie. with more focus on the backstory and less time spent on the character which didn't really need any development and this could have been one hell of a good movie. I stress could have been....

So everyone seems to say that the story line was over "used", well aren't they all? We have to start somewhere, and that's repeating what others did while giving it our own little twists. Personally I'm not one for a lot of gore and intestines and naked girls. I get really sick and tired of seeing boobs in my suspenseful horror movies. That's not something you "have" to have in there.Those scenes make watching horror flicks with my family very awkward. Some horror movies scare the living hell out of me but this one only surprised me and kept me on the edge of my seat. I like my horror movies this way. I even like how it started with Allie looking for her father and a group of her friends coming along.(Predictable, but I like it) The only thing I found a little off at first was the two getting married. I was like "Well, that's a twist" but that's okay. Though that was an awkward place to purpose. I have to say though, I didn't expect for them to kill someone off so fast. Was a nice change of pace, and Allie having those random flashes made the scenes more suspenseful.At the end where the Seamstress touches 6 and 7's faces and causes them to have flashes was a little odd, and I couldn't exactly make out what was going on in the flashes. I was a little lost on the counting too, how many were there to begin with and I'm sure I lost track a bit.(I do get confused easily) But I can always watch it again to find out. Because ya know what they say, each time you go through a movie you'll notice more that you hadn't noticed before.And on that line I'll have to say I WILL watch this movie again. I don't watch horror flicks often because I don't like tons of blood and torture. Which is why I'll NEVER see the Hostile movies(even though the storyline is awesome). Or anymore pet cemeteries(got a soft spot for animals) because I saw the second one and that damn dog appeared beside my bed, and I wasn't asleep. Yes, I was seeing things, that's what happens when you're traumatized.But anyway- I actually liked this movie, I like it enough to say it was awesome. The whole plot was good, and there wasn't a lot of filler scenes to get the story going. I also liked how the group of friends were like your typical friend groups, keep it simple stupid. I really enjoyed this movie! I also thought it was kinda cool that I was able to say, "Watch this, if he sticks with her this whole movie he'll live." And I was right! Predictable but awesome! If you like movies the way I do, you'll definitely wanna check this one out at least once.I give it an 8/10

Oh dear, this started out quite promising really. Sure its well trodden ground these days, teens ship out to an island in search of a missing man, an island supposedly cursed by a schoolteacher who was killed gruesomley by an angry mob for a crime she didn't commit. So far so teen-slasher-romp. It even starts out with a half decent gore scene, but things just get worse and worse. The 'teens' are pretty unbelievable as human beings despite playing pretty defined stereotypes, although this is more of a script weakness than an acting one. Their behaviour is unintelligible given the situation with no firm moral direction, at times they behave as if finding a friend hanging from a tree with their eyes and mouth sown shut is the ultra terrifying situation it would be in real life, but then in the next breath they are all splitting up in a dark forest as if it's nothing, I know this is nothing new in a teen horror, heck its a STAPLE, but its just so contrived in this movie.As the film approaches its predictable finale things just become a bit laughable, genuinely i can only assume they ran out of money and everything starts to fall apart, the characters do completely bizarre things, the twists make no sense, the conclusion makes no sense the film ends up making no sense. Really poor.4/10 and thats being generous for the odd decent scene the film dishes out, oh and in a teen slasher there is SUPPOSED to be at least one topless hottie, nope they don't even get that genre necessity right