Irish writer and director Conor McMahon’s comedy horror stars comedian Ross Noble as the eponymous Stitches, a murderous zombie clown.
Years after the drunken, lecherous Stitches died during a freak accident at his tenth birthday party, shy student Tom (Tommy Knight) is more optimistic about his 16th, where he hopes to woo his pretty emo neighbour Kate (Gemma-Leah Devereux.) Unfortunately, a resurrected Stitches has invited himself along to the boisterous shindig, and begins to enact his icky revenge on all the kids who witnessed his untimely demise.
Stitches’ kills are impressively gory and imaginative, and clever effects are used to up the gross-out factor, such as when he removes an overweight teen’s brains with an ice-cream scoop, twists a boy’s intestines into a balloon animal and inflates and explodes heads with liberal use of a helium pump.
Between kills, the film is immature, and oddly pervy and misogynistic. The breasts and sex lives of underage girls are discussed and shown in uncomfortable detail. When Stitches stabs a pretty 16-year-old in the back he declares she’s been “taken from behind”. This is merely one of the many cringeworthy puns the usually loveable Noble is forced to make. Avoid.