13 Sins Review

What a twisted, fun ride this one was. The horror genre lacks originality most of the time and this was a breath of fresh air. This movie took a great concept and created truly memorable scenes full of suspense and gore. I loved the pacing of the story too, there was never a dull moment from beginning to end.

13 Sins (2014) is a remake of the 2006 Thai comedy horror film 13 Beloved. It was directed by Daniel Stamm and written by Daniel Stamm and David Birke. It stars Mark Webber, Ron Perlman, Rutina Wesley and Devon Graye. Elliot Brindle (Webber) is a salesman with a fiance (Wesley) and a baby on the way. Things start going horribly wrong for Elliot. He loses his job, finds out his hateful, racist father was going to have to live with him, and his brother was going to be forced to return to a facility. It seemed nothing could go worse when he received a phone call. A mysterious stranger tells him to swat a fly for 1000 dollars. He does it and immediately receives the money in his bank account. This seemed to be the answer to his prayers. 13 challenges for total financial freedom. Little does he know just how sick the game was going to get.

This was a great story. Right from the beginning the movie grabs you and doesn’t let go. I loved how from one scene to the next you just wonder what the madmen on the other end of those phone calls were going to make Elliot do next. I felt that Elliot’s helplessness was very believable too. There was a nice ramping up of the stakes along the way as well, which lent to the feel of the film as a whole.

If I had to criticize anything about this movie, I wish they would have expanded on the ending a bit more, maybe revealed how high profile the culprits of the game actually were. I also would have liked to hear more from the guy who had been studying the game and had done all that research because that seemed very interesting to me. It was almost like they didn’t know how to end this story, so they just threw together a vague conclusion.

I would call this a very good entry in the horror genre. It has everything you could ask for, including a few twists and a couple decapitations. If you like horror and crave originality, check out this flick.

• 13 Sins had a 4 million dollar budget and the worldwide gross was 826,913.
• This film was released on March 7, 2014 and was distributed by Dimension Films.
• This movie was filmed in Louisiana.
• Ron Perlman did not see the original film, as he did not want it to influence his performance.
• This was George Coe's final film before his death on July 18, 2015 at the age of 86.
• This film is a remake of the 2006 film 13 Beloved.
• Two endings were shot; a more upbeat ending and a highly nihilistic ending. The alternate ending is available on the Blu-ray release.