Platypuschow
Pin is a hard film to categorise, I'd say horrorish.......maybe just a thriller.It tells the story of a strict family raising their two children. The father is a doctor who treats his anatomic educational mannequin as though it were a person and gets his children in on it as well.As you can imagine this effects the kids quite severely especially the son who grows up to be more than a little odd.Starring the excellent Terry O'Quinn and David Hewlett (Even though I didn't realise it was him until late in the film) this quirky little tale is filled with a combination of weird and deeply uncomfortable scenes.Not sure who the demographic for this one would be, I'd say a definite one for those with a taste for the less than usual.The Good:Terry O'QuinnDavid Hewlett is excellent but unrecognisableThe Bad:Unsettling filmNot exactly engagingThings I Learnt From This Movie:I'm genuinely concerned for the writer of the film and their level of mental health. Some of the conversation matter from the kids, sex with an anatomy dummy and more moments raise questions I may not want to know the answers to.
gavin6942
In this low-budget descendant of "Psycho", Ursula and Leon are sister and brother, living alone, save for a large wooden puppet they call "Pin" (for Pinocchio). When Ursula starts hanging around with new boyfriend Stan, Leon and Pin take action.What drew me to this film was Terry O'Quinn, who has never (so far as I'm aware) made a bad film. And although he is more of a secondary, supporting actor here, this film is no less good than anything else he has done.What makes this film good is its relatively slow pace, building the suspense, waiting for the moment when all heck will break loose. And, for first time viewers, there is the mystery: is Leon crazy or is Pin truly alive and only willing to open up to specific people? (The answer was not what I expected.)
movieman_kev
Director/screenwriter Sandor Stern (who you might remember also adapted the book The Amityville Horror for the silver-screen in 1979) brings another book to the screen, in this case one by Andrew Neiderman, who penned a book that would later be a tad more popular the Devil's Advocate, perhaps you've heard of it.Leon (David Hewlett of Stargate: Atlantis and Scanners 2) and Ursula (Cynthia Preston, the voice of Zelda in the Lenged of Zelda) are living on their own in their parents mansion after they die in a car accident. Leon is a tad off to say the least and chooses to have Pin, a life-sized anatomically correct medical dummy that his father (the legendary Terry O'Quinn) had used as a ventriloquist doll, as his best friend. When Leon feels threatened be it from an aunt that the siblings don't particularly care for or an admirer of Ursula that Leon gets jealous of (yes Leon's slightly incestrial, I neglected to mention that), bad things start to happen.This film comes off like a slightly more twisted version of Psycho, with the dummy providing stand-in for Norman's deceased mother. It's never a question of Leon being very mentally ill, but the movie is just provides a morbid and tense enough atmosphere to stand on it's own right. There are a few plot points that don't go anywhere (both Urusula's abortion & the strange nurse who gets off on Pin are no sooner mentioned as they are forgotten, the latter being a particular WTF moment, although that experience could've contributed to young Leon's mental state in retrospect), but overall it's a tightly told tale that I found myself happy to watch. Just don't go into the film expecting a scare-fest, as it's much more concerned with the psychological terror.And to think if I hadn't saw this on Instant Netflix via Xbox 360, I would not have given it a chance. That would truly have been a crying shame.Eye Candy: Helene Udy gets topless My Grade: B+
Backlash007
~Spoiler~ Pin is a subtle creepfest from the writers of The Amityville Horror and The Devil's Advocate. This was Sandor Stern's first gig directing for the big screen and he does a remarkable job. He never once overstates the horror. Pin is about 2 young siblings who are raised by unorthodox parents. Their mother is a neat freak and their father is a doctor who treats his children not much differently than his patients. He uses his anatomical dummy (named Pin, short for Pinocchio) to teach the children life lessons. He does this through ventriloquism. His daughter understands this, but his son believes Pin is real. Between the absentee parentism and bizarre father figure in Pin, Leon becomes a deeply disturbed individual. As he grows up, Leon becomes a classic paranoid schizophrenic. Playing Leon is David Hewlitt. Hewlitt, no stranger to the genre, is amazing here. Not since Norman Bates has a screen psycho been so seemingly harmless yet capable of anything. His sister is played by Cynthia Preston. She's also really good. You really care about her character and want to see her escape her brother's madness. It's nice to see Terry O'Quinn (The Stepfather) playing a different kind of father here. He's not playing a psychopath, but there is still something odd about his performance. The ending was truly brilliant and fans of Hitchcock's Psycho should really enjoy this movie.
AD
