![]() What works for Pin is that Leon creates such tension around the medical dummy that everyone can’t help but walk on eggshells around it as if it’s real. Pin does creative work in this department since it clearly telegraphs from the start that Pin isn’t a real thing, yet it exercises the idea of tulpas and the power of the mind. The other natural direction that films with a frightening inanimate object take is the push and pull of whether this item is actually alive or a symptom of a psychological break. The closest cinematic analogue is the odd wooden totem from 1995’s The Fear, which is still a far cry from being the same. ![]() ![]() There aren’t enough horror movies that celebrate this commonplace skinless relic and Pin has such cool confidence in its concept that it can just linger on stationary shots of Pin that are highly evocative. Pin beautifully subverts this idea by presenting an anatomy doll in all of its unnerving glory just to remind the audience that life-size human anatomy dummies were a real, weird thing. It’s common for the evil doll horror sub-genre to lean into the seemingly safe and friendly nature of its supposedly haunted items. Pin, while refusing to limit itself to just one type of horror, delivers a memorable meditation on trauma that makes an even greater impact 35 years later. One of the more obscure entries in the evil doll sub-genre is 1988’s Pin, a disturbing tale of repressed pain, codependent family dynamics, and displaced identity that bears more in common with Psycho than Child’s Play. There’s an instantly identifiable selling point to one of these stories where a mundane toy suddenly becomes a terrifying artifact. Horror’s “evil doll” sub-genre has never been more popular, but it’s been a lively area of terror for many decades now. Sandor Stern’s ‘Pin’ is an unsung ‘80s classic that tells a traumatic tale of a broken family that turns an unhealthy coping mechanism into a totem of terror.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |