Needle (2010)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

NEEDLE is a film that I'd never heard of before seeing the cover. It intrigued me, looking like a HELLRAISER rip off with a mysterious kind of puzzle box being used to commit evil acts, so I thought I'd try it out. What I uncovered was a surprisingly enjoyable little movie that comes across as very familiar but made for a good evening's viewing all the same.The storyline is indeed HELLRAISER themed, albeit with a few voodoo-themed twists. A bunch of high school students are tormented by a mystery villain who has the power to kill from afar. The horror content is strong stuff indeed, as the film is packed with some very gruesome death scenes which are effectively staged. It's a shame the director hasn't made more films in the horror genre given the strength of his work here.Even better, one of the leads is played by VIKINGS star Travis Fimmel, who's always a delight to see on screen. Fimmel is well supported by the likes of Ben Mendelsohn playing the investigating cop, and in particularly a small but excellent turn from John Jarratt playing the local coroner. The scenes between Fimmel and Jarratt were a dream come true for this viewer, and I can only wish that Jarrett had more screen time. Still, it's enough...

Needle is written well both story and characters. This film has a 1990's vibe so if you're fan of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Halloween H2O,etc etc then this worth checking out. The murder weapon -the voodoo- is well thought of since using a gun or knife has been used countless times so well done to the writers Anthony Egan and John V Soto. Filmscope have casted well with rising stars Michael Dorman and Travis as brothers ( Ben & Marcus) Luke Carroll (Nelson), Nathaniel Buzolic (Ryan), Khan Chittenden (Jed), Trilby Glover (Isobel) and Jessica Marais (Kandi) have been perfectly casted as his college friends. Veteran actors Ben Mendelsohn and Malcolm Kennard have small parts playing Detectives Meares and Reddick and good to John Jarratt as quirky Paul the coroner makes a welcome change from his Wolfcreek character.

It's films like Needle that have driven me to become a genre based filmmaker. While I'm only in my final year of film school I've watched quite literally 100's of films in this genre! I had the opportunity to view Needle at a private screening earlier this year, at first I thought it was another run of the mill teens die movie which it still is, however it was first class in the way that they die, it actually made me go back to my script that I'm writing and look at my own killer and if there are ways I could be more original and creative.Overall the script was nicely presented on screen however some of the acting in stages seemed underdone (above comment when Travis' character doesn't seemed phased about the gruesome death of someone he knows) and when the killer is revealed seems slightly overacted by the actor (still haven't been able to work out if this is the result of the script, actor or director).However highly entertaining and refreshing, it showed me there is still plenty of life left in the genre that I love and can't wait to direct!

I've been meaning to write this review since I first watched it at the "CinfestOz" Premiere in Busselton a few months back. After reading some of the highly critical and unfair reviews I thought I would put in my two cents worth. I support any film made in Perth, particularly if they use WA crews. (I work in the industry, but did not work on this film, unfortunately). "Needle", "Blame" and "Wasted on the Young" are three examples of quality WA films that have been made on low budgets.The DOP on Needle was Steve Windon and its clear his eye has had a huge influence on the look of the film - it looks very slick. Although I believe this was shot on Digital, it looks like they used 35MM cameras.The story is very fresh. I admit to being wary about watching an Australian "horror movie" as most have been terrible in the past, but this film is a breath of fresh air. I have never seen a film where the killer uses a machine that makes voodoo dolls. Congratulations to the writers for thinking of this new device. Although the film has the same generic elements of a slasher, the characters, locations and story set this as a quality film with some major unique differences.The film has a slower pace than most frenetic (and usually bad) US slashers and I noted some of the reviewers have criticized the film for this - they couldn't be more wrong! I loved spending time with the characters and when they started to get killed off I did start to feel the tension gradually rising and rising until the climatic end.I have noted from their website that they are promoting the murder mystery element of Needle and without doubt this is the strongest part of the film. I certainly did not work out the killer until the reveal and this was a great surprise. Overall my opinion is that this is a good film, well worth watching. I can't wait to see this again when its released in cinemas in Australia!