PINS AND NEEDLES (2025)

New streaming on Tubi from Vortex Media!
Directed/Written by James Villeneuve.
Check out the trailer here!!

A young, diabetic gal named Max (Chelsea Clark) must go home early from a weekend of volunteer environmental work. But on the ride home with her friends, Max finds herself fighting for her life against organ harvesting couple Emily and Frank (Kate Corbett and Ryan McDonald).

PINS AND NEEDLES is a relentless little film, filled with cat and mouse shenanigans and plenty of gore. The film moves at a pretty brisk pace, as Max finds herself fighting on her own against this murderous couple very early in the film. And her fight is tough. Max is fighting tooth and nail to survive this experience. All in all, the way the whole film plays out is potent with thrills and filled with some very brutal violence. For the most part, PINS AND NEEDLES would be a film I’d usually recommend wholeheartedly.

Except…

Except for the fact that PINS AND NEEDLES really want you to know that Max has diabetes. It’s the crux of the entire film. Max is either running low on blood sugar. Or needing insulin. Or needing to test her blood sugar. Or fainting because her blood sugar is too low or too high. I lost count the number of times PINS AND NEEDLES stopped the momentum to a skidding halt for Max to prick her finger and test her blood sugar. Or Max left her insulin in the car, and she has to sneak in to get it. It’s goddamn ridiculous.

Look, I don’t have diabetes. My dad did though and while that was a long time ago, he didn’t have to check his blood sugar every five minutes. Maybe that’s how diabetes works these days. Most likely, not. All I know is that despite the fact that Max needed to check her diabetes so many times, there is absolutely no reason to show it over and over and over and fucking over again.

The need to repeat the same kind of challenge for our heroine throughout the entire film annihilated any chance of me recommending PINS AND NEEDLES. This utter lack of creativity floored me. There’s a scene in the film where Max is hiding out in the bedroom and Emily is walking around the house and she’s on her way, but Max has to take a second to check her blood levels again and spreads her kit out on the bed, only to shoot up with insulin, and then scramble to get her kit packed up again before she gets to the room. And that’s after Max has endangered herself in this way about three times before in the film. Every other scene Max is pricking her finger and testing her blood. It’s like a 90-minute ad for insulin or something. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

PINS AND NEEDLES has some decent performances. Chelsea Clark is spunky as all get out as Max. The couple, played by Corbett and McDonald, aren’t drooling, cannibalistic organ-grinders. They’re a plucky, preppy couple cartoonishly chipper for the devious things they are doing. It made for an interesting watch. And again, there’s action, gore, and some nice scenes of tension.

Still, the fact that director/writer James Villeneuve chose to dedicate so much fucking time to Max dealing with her diabetes killed this one for me. This is nothing against those with diabetes and I’m sure if those people had to go through the ordeal of watching this film, they’d get bored with all the attention themselves. The title PINS AND NEEDLES most likely has to do with the feeling diabetes gives Max, as well as being a double entendre about tension, but for me, I was on PINS AND NEEDLES for this walking commercial for diabetes to just be over.