Movie Reviews

Review: ‘The Sinners’ is an Ambitious Teen Murder Mystery

Published

5 years ago

February 15, 2021

In Courtney Paige’s The Sinners (aka The Color Rose), a group of teenage girls attending a Catholic high school are labeled as “The Sins”, each taking on the character traits of their reported dalliances. There’s spoiled Katie who fills the label of greed, jealous Stacy takes on envy, gifted but lazy Robin represents sloth, the (only occasionally) munching Molly is gluttony, quick-to-anger Tori is wrath, the virginal pastor’s daughter Grace has (somehow) earned lust, and the pious Aubrey is pride.

Aubrey is only mildly tolerated by the other Sins. She fills the “pride” slot in their sinful banner, but otherwise, they’re not particularly fond of her. Why she chooses to stay friends with them is the real question; the status they provide is tainted by a context that — as a good, religious girl — you’d think she’d want to avoid. At any rate, when the Sins discover that her journal contains their secrets, they decide to teach her a lesson by scaring her into silence. It’s at this point that things take a sudden turn, and the Sins themselves become both suspects and victims in a series of murders that shake their small town.

The Sinners drew inspiration from teen genre classics like Jawbreakers and Scream (with a vibe and aesthetic that feels right out of The Craft) and thematically dips its carefully painted toe into the dark waters of Se7en. Though the intentions are strong, as a cohesive film, The Sinners falls short of the mark, delivering a muddled mystery without enough motivation to feel truly meaningful.

The Sinners

The Sinners is Canadian-made from a female filmmaker, and as a female Canadian, I was hoping to really love this one. But, although the cinematography (by Stirling Bancroft) is very strong, the script (written by Courtney Paige, Erin Hazlehurst, and Madison Smith) maybe had too many cooks in the kitchen. There are plot holes, too many characters, and a disjointed flow in the latter half of the film that can feel — at times — jarring.

Perhaps my biggest qualm with The Sinners is the motivation for the major plot points. Each action seems like an overreaction, with loose lines drawn from point A to point B. There are subplots that don’t really matter and characters that are largely unnecessary. It’s an earnest effort, but it feels like perhaps there was too much ambition when it could have been pulled back to make a stronger film.

For a group of girls labeled as “The Sins”, it’s not immediately clear why. They may be “mean” girls, but they’re not that sinful. Each of their “sins” seem loosely attached as we rarely see them exhibiting these behaviours (outside of their initial introduction). Did the girls choose which sin represents them, or was that part of a complex, layered alias plan concocted by the other students? If Aubrey is part of the clique because she so well represents pride, then which came first, the friendship or the nickname? I have some questions about the nickname timeline and logistics.

At any rate, that’s not important. I had a lot of questions about The Sinners (such as, why does a Sheriff’s wife have an official police radio to keep in touch with him while on-duty? Is that a thing?), but I think the film is mostly forgivable when keeping its audience in mind. This is a film best seen by brooding teens who want a bit of titillation with their study on the dangers of cliques and community-driven repression.

the sinners

In a director’s statement, Paige says that she hopes to dive deeper and develop the film as a TV series. Honestly, I think it would have been better served as a series. It would have allowed more character development, broader story arcs, and a more compelling exploration of the murders and the mystery that surrounded them, rather than trying to wrap up a lot of ideas into an hour-and-a-half film.

The bones of The Sinners are strong, but perhaps in trying to put too much meat onto the skeleton, the whole thing was weighed down. Some chunks fell off, the muscle couldn’t support the weight, and as a result, it stumbled. I would love to see this more evenly distributed as a series, and I feel that — in a world of 13 Reasons Why and the Scream series — there would be an audience for that (I assume? I don’t know teen culture).

So that said, I acknowledge that The Sinners is not targeted to me as an audience. Perhaps a younger crowd would find more to love in the film, with relatable themes and characters they can potentially identify with. We haven’t seen an abundance of moody teen-driven genre films lately, so it is nice to see a new offering.

You can catch The Sinners On Demand on February 19th. For more on The Sinners, click here.

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Related Topics:Courtney Paige The Sinners

Indie Horror

Panic Fest 2026 Review: ‘Creature Of The Pines’ Is An Interesting Found Footage Horror That Walks A Beaten Path

Published

15 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Jacob Davison

There are certain parts of the world that have an inherent evil or cursed nature to them. The Bermuda Triangle, where so many ships have vanished in its waters. Death Valley, where many have met their end in the unforgiving desert. And then there’s The Pine Barrens of New Jersey. A woodland infamous for the cryptid named The Jersey Devil.

While The Jersey Devil may be the mascot or face of sorts for the area, there are other dangers within those woods. Specifically, an area known as Pine Hollow. Infamous for numerous disappearances of local and hikers. While some attribute it to natural hazards, others say the source of these incidents may be tied to folklore. An ancient mimic of indigenous legend that targets those wandering its woods. After a trio of hikers disappear and leaves only one shell shocked survivor and witness wandering the wilderness, a documentary crew attempts to clarify between fact and fiction… only to find themselves subject to their own torments.

Creature Of The Pines is a decent found footage/mockumentary endeavor, and I’m always a sucker for that kind of framing. I will also give points for taking an original approach on the region rather than using a more well known cryptid or monster. Instead, crafting their own beast with the shapeshifting demon of indigenous lore. It did make it more interesting than relying on a more infamous antagonist, allowing the movie to make up its own rules and history behind the titular creature.

Unfortunately, the story does fall into a lot of the cliches of the sub-genre as well. Lots of scenes building up strange sounds coming form the woods leading to some shaky cam segments as a character is dragged off by an unseen force and such. The talking heads portions of the mockumentary featured some decent actors and subjects that kept things fairly fresh. Especially the former forest ranger who discussed the dark and terrible history of Pine Hollow.

Even still, the third act was kind of a mixed bag with the final confrontation and reveal of the horror. Ambiguity tends to work better in found footage for a reason, sometimes its better to leave the evil up to the imagination. There’s also a twist to the ending that felt a bit obvious considering the build up.

But, if you’re a big fan of found footage and mockumentary horror like I am, (especially for New England based horror) then Creature Of The Pines is worth at least a watch.

Movie Reviews

The Vord Review: The Mythology Is Free. Everything Else Costs Something.

Published

2 days ago

May 4, 2026

Luna Gray

Here is what drew me to The Vord: the premise is the kind of thing that only works if someone actually takes it seriously. An ancient Nordic entity bound to a corrupt priest, sent to claim a woman’s soul as an offering to something older and worse, while that same entity is also her spiritual guardian. I wanted this film to work.

It does not fully work. But it is trying to do something interesting, and that makes it worth watching.

Writer-director M.T. Maliha’s feature debut arrives on UK digital May 4 via Miracle Media.

What Maliha Is Going For

The setup puts Jillian between two competing forces pulling at her from opposite directions: the Catholic Church, which has colonized her spiritual life and now turns out to harbor a priest who has sold himself to something ancient, and her pagan roots, which the film treats as something alive rather than something historical.

The entity called The Vord sits above both of these, watching, bound to the priest by a deal that requires it to deliver Jillian’s soul to the Old One in exchange for its own redemption. The theological architecture here is actually interesting. Can something that exists outside human moral categories be held accountable to them? Can an entity that has survived centuries of watching humanity be moved by one woman’s particular situation?

Maliha has said the horror she was after was psychological, the confusion of faith and will rather than gore or jump scares. Midsommar works because it treats pagan tradition as something that believes in itself. The Witch works because its supernatural architecture is airtight. The Vord is reaching for that register but never sticks the landing.

Where the Film Breathes

There are moments here that find what they are looking for. The film understands that dread does not need noise to work, and in its quieter stretches, something is present in the frame that earns the atmosphere.

The mythological framework, pagan tradition framed not as superstition but as a parallel system of real spiritual authority that the Church has spent centuries trying to bury, gives the film a tension that does not depend on the effects budget to land. That part works without costing anything extra. Maliha clearly did her research and cares about this material.

The Part That Is Hard to Get Past

The cast is committed. That is what I want to say first, because it is true. The cast is fully committed to this material, and commitment matters. The problem is that the script does not always give them the footing they need to stand on, and when it does not, the gaps are visible.

The scenes that depend most heavily on dialogue to build tension are the ones that struggle the most. The Vord is a film where the horror is supposed to live in what people say to each other, in revelation and betrayal and spiritual crisis, and those scenes require a level of precision in both writing and performance that is not consistent here. Some of the more ambitious emotional confrontations in the second half land somewhere between affecting and slightly stiff. There is nothing cruel to say about that. It is a hard thing to execute, and first films do not always execute the hardest things.

The storytelling also has structural issues that make the mythology harder to follow than it needs to be. The film would benefit from a more disciplined approach to when it reveals information. The narrative shifts do not always land with the weight they are reaching for, and the audience ends up doing more work than they should to stay oriented inside the mythology.

The Budget Is a Real Factor

Psychological horror is one of the most budget-sensitive genres there is. It needs control of every element, the sound, the light, the silence, the space between what is shown and what is not. These things are expensive, and the gap between what The Vord wants to do atmospherically and what the production can fully deliver is visible throughout. This is not a criticism so much as a description. Maliha is attempting a film whose entire emotional register depends on precise atmospheric control, and she does not always have the resources that precision requires.

Working within budget constraints while making folk horror is genuinely one of the harder problems in low-budget filmmaking. Caveat pulled it off on a shoestring because it found the specific visual grammar its story needed and stayed inside it. The Vord has not fully found that grammar yet.

Worth Seeing Anyway

The Vord is not the film it wants to be. But the film it wants to be is more interesting than most of what is on offer in this corner of horror right now, and Maliha is worth watching as she figures out how to make it. The mythology she is drawing from, the premise she has built around it, the question of whether the thing guarding you and the thing hunting you can be the same entity, these are good materials. Good materials in imperfect hands are still good materials.

This is a debut. Give it the weight that deserves.

The Vord is streaming on UK digital from May 4 via Miracle Media.

Movie Reviews

‘ZombieCON Vol. 1’ Gets the Con Right. The Zombies Arrive When They Want To.

Published

1 week ago

April 28, 2026

Luna Gray

ZombieCON Vol. 1 follows Rocket’s Rockets, a cosplay crew who are three-time regional anime convention champions, two of whom also wrote the film alongside their director, and it delivers a genuinely heartfelt love letter to nerd culture.

Just think Knights of Badassdom, a horror film that needs you to understand why these people care about what they care about before it can ask you to care about them. Although, I think the whole “Cosplay is lame”! Thing died out a long time ago.

The Comedy

The practical makeup effects look like the work of actual cosplayers competing, not Hollywood’s approximation of cosplayers competing, and the distinction is the difference between a film that is looking at this world from the outside and one that has been living in it.

The characters carry the specific mixture of expertise and softness that comes from living inside a somewhat shunned culture. However, ZombieCON Vol. 1 leans into that culture in a loving, non judgemental way.

The Scott Pilgrim energy in the fight staging earns its references rather than just pointing at them. The anime visual grammar is sincere, not ironic, which is the only register in which this kind of thing is actually funny. The film borrows inspiration from just about everyone but somehow manages to do it respectfully.

The Cast

Punkie Johnson came to this from Saturday Night Live, and the gap between her and the rest of the ensemble is perceptible in every scene they share. She finds the timing on lines that are still looking for their timing, lands the joke at the exact moment before the scene needs to move on, and the effect is that everything around her becomes more controlled in her presence.

Erin Áine as Claire carries the film’s stranger turns without explaining them. The character is asked to move from one kind of story into another, several times, in ways the film does not prepare you for, and Áine moves with it without telegraphing the transition or breaking register. Manny Luke’s Rocket is calibrated to produce friction from the opening scene, and Luke commits to it without softening it or winking at the audience about it.

What It Is

ZombieCON Vol. 1 has a first act that takes thirty-one minutes to produce its first zombie, a budget that shapes what the horror can do once the horror arrives, and a cast that makes both of those things survivable.

The audience for this kind of film has been burned before by entries that treat cosplay culture as the setup for a punchline. This one does not do that. It lives inside the culture rather than observing it, and the result is a horror comedy that earns the affection it is asking for even when the seams are showing.

ZombieCON Vol. 1 is free on Tubi.