Sinners
They are the rich bitch clique who make and break the rules of their catholic school, each of the seven of them expressing a sin: Katie “Greed” Hamilton, Stacey “Envy” Rodgers, Robyn “Sloth” Pearce, Molly “Gluttony” McIvor, Tori “Wrath” Davidson, Aubrey “Pride” Miller and Grace “Lust” Carver, daughter of Pastor Dean Carver who hopes spiritual guidance will suffice as parenting.
With perfect makeup and hair, the sinners spend more time staring at the mirrors of the school toilets than at their Bibles, but behind the floral curtains of their homes where the families say grace before eating from patterned china there is discord, a snake in the garden whose whispered confession to Pastor Carver will come back to bite her.
The other girls believing it was Aubrey who betrayed them, they kidnap her, intending to scare her into compliance but instead she escapes and runs into the wood and vanishes; now a missing persons case investigated by the barely competent local police, the Sinners know that all they have to do is to behave chastely and observe the golden rule of silence.
Boldly retitled Sinners for its UK premiere at FrightFest, the debut feature of director Courtney Paige was originally known as The Colour Rose, more subtle and descriptive and setting a lower expectation for a disappointing teen thriller which is little more than Sweet Valley High on a student exchange programme with the dwindling population of Point Horror.
The seven leads aside, the film is overwhelmed by assorted parents, teachers, police officers, boyfriends, siblings and cousins, among them Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett and Michael Eklund and iZombie‘s Aleks Paunovic as Pastor Carver, Detective Zankowski and Sheriff Middleton, every walk-on part conspicuously named upon appearance but never developed beyond fleeting first impressions.
A ninety-minute parade of interchangeable characters, Sinners lacks the precision and bite of Heathers nor does it unleash the anarchy of the Bad Kids of Crestview Academy, floating in a pre-cellphone netherworld of bland fashions somewhere along the US/Canadian border, any intention to examine peer pressure squandered by the conventional script which lacks the power of The Sisterhood of Night.
FrightFest continues until Sunday 25th October
