A Masterpiece!

A lot of fun.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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.)

I heard of this film when it was released but it didn't get much word of mouth, as often happens with Canadian films. Pin is too restrained to be a true horror film and not deep enough to be a good psychological drama as often happens with Canadian films. The opening makes one speculate how the story might go--and a supernatural explanation seems possible--but the film ultimately goes with the mundane option as often happens with Canadian films.It has competent performances by the main leads--and has an interesting/weird first act that might compel or repulse viewers, but as it goes on, it starts to show strains and the ending felt bland to me. The ho-hum aspects of the film may be explained by the fact that it is funded by the Canadian government, and in the 1980s, following a decade where it had an anything goes policy--which launched the careers of David Cronenberg and allowed for the funding of just about anything-even a porno film, they radically cut back in what they would give money to. Among the restrictions was that serious criminal activity and homicidal violence could not be shown. The movie follows that rule closely. We see some beatings, and there is a few deaths, but they do not happen in violation of the government rules. Even a scene near the end involving an axe is ambiguous. One might notice that in one scene the boyfriend is shown studying french for a foreign trip--this is likely to follow rules on bilingual content! In the end the film is really about dysfunction and illness--which is once again a feature of Canadian filmmaking. The real question--and the most disturbing aspect of the film, is how anyone could think it would be commercially viable, even with the attempt at an Anywhere USA setting. There are elements in it that reminded me of the UK films Peeping Tom and the Maniac but unlike this film, they did not face such restrictions in content thus they could go deeper into psychological and horror elements and leave a stronger viewing impression.

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+

~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.