Available to rent on Amazon Prime!

NEEDLE (2010)

Directed by John V. Soto
Written by Anthony Egan & John V. Soto
Starring Michael Dorman, Travis Fimmel, Tilby Glover, John Jarrat, & Jane Badler

What starts out as your typical “cast of ridiculous good-lookings get offed one by one” flick ended up being a pretty fine whodunit. The acting here is especially exceptional here with Michael Dorman turning in an impressive lead performance as Ben, a college student who receives an antique box from his dead father’s estate that turns out to be part Barker’s Lament Configuration and part voodoo machine. When Ben’s friends starts dying in mysterious and gory ways, he is forced to work with his estranged brother, Marcus (played by Travis Fimmel) to figure out who’s using the mysterious box for murderous deeds.

Many things about NEEDLE surprised me. First and foremost, this is a damn gory film. As needles are lit red hot and burned through wax figures, the wounds show up on the victims. When the doll is broken, body parts do the same. The results are pretty darn gruesome and NEEDLE turns out to be bloodier than most slasher films of this type.

In addition to the impressive amount of gore and despite the fact that the cast is annoyingly good looking, the young stars are actually quite talented, turning in some pretty convincing performances throughout. Sure, at face value you’ve got your typical cardboard cut-outs; the jock, the geek, the rich kid, the loner, the nerdy hot chick, the lesbian couple, the black guy. But surprisingly, each actor not only looks good, but acts good as well. The actors playing the two brothers (Dorman and Fimmel) are the standouts here and it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw these two actors again in bigger roles in bigger films (though for better or worse, Dowman reminds me of a young James Spader). As an added bonus, WOLF CREEK’s Ozzie killer John Jarrat shows up as a coffee swilling coroner. I don’t know if it’s leftover creep from that film or what, but every time the actor graces the screen is ghoulishly cool.

NEEDLE has a lot going for it. Though my suspicions as to who the killer actually was turned out to be true, the ride to the revelation at the end turned out to be a well-acted and deliciously gory one. Give NEEDLE a shot—see what I did there? I think it’ll surprise you as much as it did me.

Check out the trailer here!!