In ‘Pins & Needles’ - a petri dish of Canadian talent

DYLAN FREEMAN-GRIST
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The best part of seeking out new Canadian movies is that they are a source of emerging, homegrown talent. Pins & Needles, a new horror thriller which made its debut on Super Channel last week is a perfect example. Turn it on and will get a front row seat to the formation of two Canadian stars in the making: that of its first-time director, James Villeneuve, as well as its lead Chelsea Clark.

Set during a pounding, Ontario summer Clark's Max is wrapping up work on a research project somewhere in the back country. Fed up with grinding through long hours in the field, the stresses of her early scientific career, and the unwanted advances of some dweeb she's stuck working with, she's looking forward to going home.

The trip back however goes awry. A series of events - I won't spoil here because they are fun to watch - result in her entrapment in a sterile, modern mansion in the middle of nowhere. Its owners appear on the surface to be a wealthy young couple oozing with vague indiscriminate wealth. Digging deeper however reveals that they are both bio hackers obsessed with perfecting the human condition through illegal pharmaceutical experiments while finding a way to get more rich in the process.

Their method for concocting various tinctures and black market remedies involve murdering passersbys and harvesting their organs. The husband in particular, played to villainous man-child perfection by Ryan McDonald, is the main guinea pig for the couple, with most of their “research” and experimentation being tested on him.

Luckily for Max she learns all of this at a safe distance, observing the pair who are unaware she's looking on from behind equipment racks in their murder laboratory or the closet in their open-concept kitchen as she skips from one hiding place to the next.

But why is she hiding? If they don't know she's there why doesn't she just slip out of the house and make for civilization? The issue - and titular high concept - is that Max is diabetic. Her insulin supply is dwindling, and the 2-3 day hike to the nearest place she can seek help presents a potential medical hazard she's not willing to take. Ergo she needs to steal the fucked-up power couple's car keys.

The framing and character motivation from the jump was intentional, removing some of the goofiness that can come hand-in-hand with some horror protagonists who seem to lack a  normal sense of safety or situational awareness. Max's mission to escape, but with her medicine and the couple's car keys, grounds the script without as much suspense of belief needed.

“I wanted to make a suspenseful movie, but I wanted to make it so that when people were watching the logic was bulletproof ,” Villeneuve told me when I sat down with him to discuss the project, “why would someone have to go to the scary house?, why would someone have to go to the basement? Well because they are looking for something.”

In addition to directing a feature film for the first time it's Villeneuve's second time writing one - co-penning 2020’s Vicious Fun. He also edited the film, something he's very familiar with having worked as an editor in the industry for many years. While it's his first go at directing a major narrative feature, he brings to it experience from directing hundreds of smaller projects including commercials and music videos. That experience and varied skill set shows in a debut feature that strikes up suspense while not lingering or taking itself too seriously. From its earliest days, Pins & Needles was conceived as a good time, by a filmmaker who knows what a film needs to do to be one. It's a rarity of sound craftsmanship for a feature debut. 

“Most of what I direct I edit, that's just how it works” Villeneuve notes when I asked him how the many hats he's wearing on this project come together, “it helps me be more efficient on set, because I can get fewer shots, if I know I'm against the clock I know I can get the exact shots I need for the edit.”

A thread connecting Villeneuve's first two feature scripts, is an infusion of suspense and comedy. It's a hybrid Canadian screen writers have a particular affinity for - just last month I wrote about Seeds by Kaniehtiio Horn, another Canadian gem in this mode. If there is a school of these storytellers in Canada, Villeneuve has earned admission. The absurdity of Max's situation is not unremarked upon by his script. His villains toe the balance between being both menacing and, when needed, buffoons. The film has the social commentary you need to connect and root against its antagonists without ever forgetting that it is first and foremost a thriller, whose laughs have a purpose and are expertly woven throughout.

“Threre were a couple of huge laughs in the middle of scary moments that I wanted to be there” notes Villeneuve when reflecting on the audience reaction to the film at its premiere at Blood In The Snow in November. “I just don't see myself making a brutally serious movie, there are serious elements, and the film takes itself seriously, it's not campy, there is real suspense and real danger in it.”

The humour of the film is tied together by Clark - who picked up a Vanguard award at Blood In The Snow for her performance. Her interpretation of Max approaches each situation in the film with an exasperated deadpan resolve and relatability that will have you holding your breath one moment - scared for her safety - while cheering her the next as she accelerates into a new gear of bad ass.

Clark has a magnetic charisma and comedic timing that sparks off the screen. She has all the trappings of a bonafied Canadian scream queen if these are the kind of projects she wants to keep working on. If so, a generation of Canadian filmmakers should be hard at work penning projects for her to carry. If she ever decides to step out of the speculative space I think her talent could take her well beyond the genre and our borders.

“She's in literally 95 per cent of the movie, the film was designed so that the audience feels like they are right behind her, right beside her the whole time, the way it's shot, everything is from her perspective. That's a lot of work, it takes a lot of technical ability,” notes Villeneuve “She really rose to the challenge.”

You can watch Pins & Needles on Super Channel. 

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